ANACHRONISM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does anachronism mean? 

• ANACHRONISM (noun)
  The noun ANACHRONISM has 3 senses:

1. something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred

2. an artifact that belongs to another time

3. a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age

  Familiarity information: ANACHRONISM used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANACHRONISM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

anachronism; misdating; mistiming

Hypernyms ("anachronism" is a kind of...):

timekeeping (the act or process of determining the time)

Derivation:

anachronic; anachronistic (chronologically misplaced)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An artifact that belongs to another time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("anachronism" is a kind of...):

artefact; artifact (a man-made object taken as a whole)

Derivation:

anachronic; anachronistic; anachronous (chronologically misplaced)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("anachronism" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Derivation:

anachronic; anachronistic; anachronous (chronologically misplaced)

 Context examples 

Ah, pardon me, sister Mary, cried my uncle, I am old-fashioned enough to have principles—an anachronism, I know, in this lax age.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And, finally, I am convinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand years or generations too late and an anachronism in this culminating century of civilization.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)