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History vocabulary · Historiography and Historical Thinking

Anachronism

Meaning in history, with examples

/əˈnækrənɪzəm/nounCommon term

In history, anachronism means: Something placed in the wrong period, such as an object, word or idea, or the mistake of judging the past by the standards and concepts of a later time.

In Turkish: anakronizm, çağ dışılık, zaman hatası

How it is used

Used both for factual slips, such as a clock in a play set in ancient Rome, and for errors of thinking, such as describing a medieval ruler as a nationalist. Tutors often write anachronistic in the margin of essays.

Example sentences

  1. Calling the twelfth-century kingdom a 'nation-state' is an anachronism.

  2. The film is full of anachronisms, from the costumes to the language.

Common collocations

  • an obvious anachronism
  • anachronistic language
  • avoid anachronism
  • a historical anachronism
  • hindsightUnderstanding of an event or situation that comes only after it has happened, when its results are already known.
  • contextThe circumstances, ideas and events of the time in which something happened or was written, which help explain its meaning.
  • interpretationA particular explanation of what past events meant or why they happened, based on the evidence and on the historian's questions and point of view.
  • periodizationThe dividing of the past into named periods, such as antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the debate about where the boundaries between them should fall.

More terms: Historiography and Historical Thinking

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