What is anachronism?

An anachronism is when something from today shows up in a time that’s way earlier than now.

Imagine you're playing with your favorite toy dinosaur. Now imagine that dinosaur is wearing a smartwatch, like the one your dad uses. That would be funny, and also an anachronism! The smartwatch is from today, but the dinosaur lived long before watches were even invented.

An anachronism is kind of like time travel, but instead of people going back or forward in time, it’s things that show up in the wrong era. For example, if a character from ancient Rome was holding a cell phone, that would be an anachronism too, because phones didn’t exist back then.

Sometimes, movies and books do this on purpose to make things more fun or easier to understand. But other times, it’s just a little mistake, like when you see a knight in armor wearing sunglasses!