anachronism [M17th] An anachronism, something which is wrongly placed in a particular period, comes from Greek anakhronismos, from ana- ‘backwards or against’ and khronos ‘time’. The latter is the source of other time-related words such as chronicle [ME], chronometer [E18th] a ‘time measurer’, chronological [E16th], and synchronize [E17th] ‘to make the same time’. See also chronic.