Words & WritingGreek → English
Anachronism
/əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm/noun
Something out of its proper period, whether a mistake or a survival from an earlier age.
The Greek roots
ἀνά
aná
back, against
χρόνος
chrónos
time
Literally: “a putting back in time”
The story of the word
It arrived in English in the 1640s as a scholar's term for a dating error, the sort of thing that got a forged charter thrown out. Only later did critics start using it for the wristwatch on the gladiator. The most famous example in English is the clock that strikes three in Julius Caesar, several centuries before anyone in Rome could have heard one.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
Same family
chronologychronicsynchronizechronicle
In a sentence
Cheques are an anachronism that somehow refuses to die.
One anachronism in the first scene and the audience stops believing the rest.