Anachronize

//əˈnækɹənaɪz// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To refer to, or put into, a wrong time period.

    "The only fair comparison would be between him and that one of his contemporaries who endeavored to anachronize himself, so to speak, and to subject his art, so far as might be, to the laws of classical composition."

Example

More examples

"The only fair comparison would be between him and that one of his contemporaries who endeavored to anachronize himself, so to speak, and to subject his art, so far as might be, to the laws of classical composition."

Etymology

From anachronism + -ize. From New Latin anachronismus, from Ancient Greek ἀναχρονισμός (anakhronismós), from ἀναχρονίζομαι (anakhronízomai, “referring to the wrong time”), from ἀνά (aná, “up against”) + χρονίζω (khronízō, “spending time”), from χρόνος (khrónos, “time”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.