anachronism
part of speech
noun (an anachronism, anachronisms)
meaning for a pupil
1) Something put in the wrong time, especially in a story or picture, like a wristwatch on a Roman soldier. tree →
2) A person, custom or thing that seems old-fashioned and belongs to an earlier time. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history and reading lessons, spotting an anachronism means noticing that something could not have existed then; it tells the reader a writer or film-maker made a mistake or is playing a joke. Phrases: «a glaring anachronism», «a bit of an anachronism», «spot the anachronism».
examples
- The film showed a knight with a mobile phone, which is a funny anachronism. tree →
- Can you spot the anachronism in this picture of ancient Egypt? tree →
- A clock striking in Julius Caesar's Rome is an anachronism, because such clocks did not exist yet. tree →
- Some people think writing cheques is an anachronism now that we pay by phone. tree →
- Grandad says the old red phone box is a lovely anachronism. tree →
- Our teacher hid three anachronisms in the story about the Vikings. tree →
- A dinosaur next to cavemen is a famous anachronism in cartoons. tree →
- The steam train in the medieval story was an anachronism. tree →
- My battery captain called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day.” tree →
note
Countable noun; plural «anachronisms». Adjective «anachronistic». Pronounced a-NAK-ro-nism. Do not confuse with «acronym» (a word made from first letters, like NASA). Dinosaurs and people never lived at the same time, so cartoons showing them together are anachronisms, not history.
In the corpora
- If the thing is younger than the scene, you have found an anachronism.
- An anachronism is something that belongs to another time, such as a Roman soldier with a wristwatch or a Viking with a smartphone.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «anachronism» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.