ANACHRONISM, a neglect or falsification, whether wilful or undesigned, of chronological relation (Gr. ava,back, and xpovos, time). Its commonest use is in the ante-dating of events, cir cumstances, or customs; i.e., in the introduction, especially in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis, of details borrowed from a later age. Anachronisms may originate through ignorance of the progress of the arts and sciences and the other ascertained facts of history; artists on the stage and on canvas, in story and in song in all ages and all countries have been inclined to assimilate their dramatis personae to their own nationality and time.