Have you ever been watching a movie and notice there is something in the scene that doesn’t really belong?  The one that stands out to me is the scene in the 2000 movie “The Gladiator”, which is set in AD 180, but if you look closely, an airplane is flying over! I’m sure you can think of others.  

Well, there’s a word for occurrences like this:  anachronistic.

Anachronistic means something that's out of place in time. It could be an object, a person, an idea—or even a word or expression that seems to belong to another era. 

The word has its roots in ancient Greek. Chronos means “time,” and ana can mean “up,” “back,” or “again.” The Greek word that eventually gave us anachronism had the idea of being late or making a mistake about when something happened.

In fact, when anachronism first appeared in English in the 1600s, it referred specifically to an error in chronology—basically, getting the timing wrong. Over time, its meaning expanded to include anything that seems to belong to the wrong time period.  

Now, anachronisms aren't just mistakes in movies. They can happen in real life, too. Imagine walking into a modern office and finding someone using a typewriter—or showing up at a high-tech recording studio and finding a reel-to-reel player.

Even language can become anachronistic. Words and expressions that were once completely normal can eventually sound like they belong to another era.  Like, for most people, wouldn’t it be strange to be invited to sit in the parlor of someone’s house…it just feels like it’s from another era, right? 

So the next time you see, or hear, something that seems completely out of place in time, you know the word to use: anachronistic.