anachronism, anacronism

[In Ger. anachronism; Fr. a nach ron is me; Sp. and Ital. anacronismo Port. anachronismo; all from Gr. ἀναχρονισμός (a nach ron is mos): ἀνά (ana), and χρονισμός (chronismos) (1) a long duration, (2) a coming late; χρονίζω ( chronizo ) = to touch; χρόνος ( chronos ) = time.] The placing of an historic event, or manners and customs, ., at a wrong chronological date. The term is especially used when anything is dated too early. Thus, it would be a very great anachronism were a modern poet to introduce cannon at the siege of Troy. "This leads me to the defence of the famous ana chronism , in making Æneas and Dido contemporaries; for it is certain that the hero lived almost two hundred years before the building of Carthage."- Dryden . "The statement, therefore, which represented the Roman envoys in the year after the first sece ion as obtaining corn from Dionysius the elder, resembles the anachronism which makes Numa the disciple of Pythagoras, or that which describes the colloquy between Solon and Crœsus."- Lewis : Early Roman list ., ch. xii, pt. ii., § 19. ăn-a-chron-is-tic, a . [From Eng. a nach ron is(m); -tic. Or from Gr. ἀvá (ana) = back; χρονιστός ( chronistos ) = tarrying, delaying.] [ANACHRONISM.] Pertaining to or involving an anachronism; wrongly dated. "Among the anachronistic improprieties which this poem contains, the most conspicuous is the fiction of Hector's sepulchre."- Warton : Hist . E. P. , ii., § 5.