English

Adjective

anachronistic ‎(comparative more anachronistic, superlative most anachronistic)

1. Erroneous in date; containing an anachronism; in a wrong time; not applicable to or not appropriate for the time.

   If you know where to look in the movie, you can spot an anachronistic wrist watch on one of the Roman soldiers.

   • 1975, David O. McNeil, Guillaume Budé and Humanism in the Reign of Francis I, page 71,

     The impiety of the Ciceronian attitude was probably his major objection to the sect, yet the dialogue is mainly concerned with the more anachronistic and illogical aspects of attempting to write only as Cicero did.

   • 1996, Joan Hoff, The Pernicious Effects of Poststructuralism on Women's History, Diane Bell, Renate Klein (editors), Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, page 404,

     What could be more anachronistic than imposing contemporary concern over fragmentation, i.e. diversity, of the present on the past so that no sources of patriarchal power or hierarchy can be held responsible for collective oppression in any time period?

   • 2001, David E. Hojman, Economic Growth and Civil Society under Pinochet and Thatcher: A Political Economy Analysis of Free-Market Models in Chile and the United Kingdom, Frank H. Columbus (editor), Politics and Economics of Latin America, Volume 1, footnote, page 94,

     Among them, even the most lucid of 'one-nation' Tories had severe difficulties in seeing the anti-growth nature of some of the most anachronistic of traditional British institutions.

   • 2004, John W. Boyer, 1: Catholics, Christians and the Challenges of Democracy: The Heritage of the Nineteenth Century, Wolfram Kaiser, Helmut Wohnout (editors), Political Catholicism in Europe 1918-1945, Volume 1, page 22,

     The 'liberalism' issue that perplexed Catholics in the 1880s was by 1914 increasingly anachronistic, as political liberalism won resoundingly (in France), or lost resoundingly (in Austria), or became fragmented and divided (in Germany).

   • 2013, Brian Moeran, Asian Media Productions, page 104,

     In their daily practices, journalists often perpetuated ageing and increasingly anachronistic ideologies, but they were rarely, in fact, dominated by them.

2. (of a person) Having opinions from the past; preferring things or values of the past; behind the times; overly conservative.

Synonyms

• (erroneous in date): anachronous, anachronistical
• (not or no longer applicable or appropriate for the time): outdated, antiquated, obsolete
• (having opinions from the past): behind the times, old-fashioned, traditional

Related terms

• anachronism
• anachronist
• anachronistically

Translations

See also

• archaic
• conservative
• incongruent
• outdated
• parachronistic
• prochronistic

References

• anachronistic in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• anachronistic in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913