36 examples of anachronyms

Anachronyms are words that are used “in an anachronistic way, by referring to something in a way that is appropriate only for a former or later time.” (Source) I chanced upon the term through a Reddit post, and was immediately charmed, so I thought I would make a list of them. There are many more than thirty out there, but here are the ones that are most mentioned online, supplemented with a few that I liked a lot myself. If you know of any more, let me know in the comments!

(Side note: I’m not sure why the definition includes later, who uses a word that is appropriate for a later time? Time travellers? Or are we saying that words from science fiction were anachronyms before the actual thing was invented, like cyberspace? Or is it an anachronym if you use something like to teleport figuratively? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!)

Bookmark

• Original meaning: A physical marker placed in a book to indicate where the reader left off.
• Current meaning: A saved link or shortcut to a specific webpage or document.

CC (carbon copy)

• Original meaning: Refers to copying a document using carbon paper.
• Current meaning: Used in emails to send a copy to secondary recipients.

Clipboard

• Original meaning: A flat board with a clip at the top for holding papers.
• Current meaning: A temporary storage space for copied or cut text and images on a computer.

Cloakroom

• Original meaning: a room for cloaks
• Current meaning: a room for coats (in the UK some people call teh lavatory the “cloakroom”)

to Clock in

• Original meaning: To use a mechanical time clock to record work start times.
• Current meaning: Logging in or recording work hours digitally.

to Cut and paste

• Original meaning: Refers to physically cutting pieces of paper and pasting (sticking with a kind of glue) them elsewhere.
• Current meaning: Moving text or images from one place to another on a computer.

to Dial a phone number

• Original meaning: To rotate the dial on a rotary phone to call a number.
• Current meaning: To touch a screen to call a number.

Doorbell

• Original meaning: A mechanical bell operated by pulling a cord or pressing a button to alert residents.
• Current meaning: Often an electronic chime, with some now integrated into smart home systems (e.g., video doorbells).

to Film a video

• Original meaning: To record using photographic film in a camera.
• Current meaning: To record using digital devices like phones or camcorders.

A flash in the pan

• Original meaning: From the days of flintlock firearms, where the main charge was intended to be fired by a small charge of gunpowder in the priming pan. If the resultant fire did not pass through the touch hole and ignite the main charge, it produced noise and smoke, but no substantial effect, and was termed a flash in the pan. (Source)
• Current meaning: A transient occurrence with no long-term effect.

Footage

• Original meaning: Refers to film recorded on physical reels measured in feet. From early 35 mm silent film, which is traditionally measured in feet and frames. The fact that film was measured by length in cutting rooms, and that there are 16 frames in a foot of 35 mm film, which roughly represented 1 second of screen time in some early silent films, made feet a natural unit of measure for film. (Source)
• Current meaning: Refers to video content, regardless of the medium or length.

to Get the sack

• Original meaning: an allusion to tradesmen, who owned their own tools and took them with them in a bag or sack when they were dismissed from employment. (Source)
• Current meaning: to be dismissed from employment; (often portrayed in many films and TV shows by an office worker taking their personal possessions home in a cardboard box; this is obviously a strong mental image that has persisted through the ages)

Glove compartment

• Original meaning: A small compartment in cars originally used to store gloves.
• Current meaning: A storage space for various items in a car, rarely used for gloves.

Hot off the press

• Original meaning: News or publications freshly printed using a printing press. Newsprint used to be printed by a process called ‘hot metal printing’, which involved molten lead being introduced into a mould to form the printing block. (Source) After having just been printed on, newspapers felt warm (source)
• Current meaning: Information or news that is brand new or freshly released.

Ice box

• Original meaning: A chilled box used before the invention of modern refrigerators, kept cool with ice blocks.
• Current meaning: Informal term for a refrigerator, though rarely used now.

Inbox

• Original meaning: A physical box (though more like a tray) for incoming paper correspondence.
• Current meaning: A digital space for receiving emails or messages.

Lowercase/ uppercase

• Original meaning: Refers to the smaller letters stored in the lower section of a typesetter’s case, or the bigger letters stored in the upper section
• Current meaning: Refers to the small/ big version of letters in written or digital text.

Podcast

• Original meaning: Digital audio or video content distributed online, named after the iPod, where it was initially popular.
• Current meaning: Streaming or downloadable audio content, with no connection to the now largely obsolete iPod.

Presentation slide

• Original meaning: Physical slides used in projectors for presentations. So-called, I assume, because you would slide these hard little see-through pictures in and out of the slide-holder. The word goes as far back as magic lanterns (1819). A slide was originally a hand-painted picture on glass, making a more modern plastic slide with a printed photograph an anachronym, which means the modern usage is arguably an anachronym of an anachronym. Arguably, because the plastic slides of the late 20th century still slid.)
• Current meaning: Digital presentation pages, commonly associated with PowerPoint or other software.

Rewind

• Original meaning: To manually or mechanically wind tape or film backward to a previous point.
• Current meaning: To go back to a previous point in a digital video or audio file.

to Ring up a sale

• Original meaning: To record a sale using a mechanical cash register, where each transaction was accompanied by the literal ringing of a bell.
• Current meaning: To process a transaction, typically using an electronic point-of-sale system, with no bell involved.

to Roll up/roll down your car window

• Original meaning: To manually raise or lower car windows using a crank.
• Current meaning: Pressing a button to electronically move car windows. (This one could be debated, as there is still some sort of rolling mechanism in the car door. It was so often mentioned on forums that I decided to include it anyway.)

Run-of-the-mill

• Original meaning:  The mill in question was a weaving mill and the articles first called ‘run of the mill’ were clothes. (Source) The run of the mill was all the stuff that was made by the mill before it had been graded or checked for quality. The stuff could be good. Could be bad. Could be average. (Source)
• Current meaning: ordinary or average

Silverware

• Original meaning: Eating utensils made from real silver.
• Current meaning: Eating utensils made from various materials, usually stainless steel.

Software patch

• Original meaning: a physical patch, with tape, on a punchcard. (Cardboard punchcards were used to program some of the first computers) You can see a picture here.
• Current meaning: a new piece of code added to improve a computer program.

to Step on the gas

• Original meaning: To press the accelerator pedal in a car to increase speed, originally referencing cars powered by petrol (gasoline).
• Current meaning: To accelerate a car or figuratively to increase speed or effort in any task, even when the vehicle or context does not involve petrol (e.g., electric cars).

Stock footage

• Original meaning: Pre-recorded film stored in physical archives (“in the stock room”) for reuse.
• Current meaning: Pre-recorded digital video clips used for various projects.

to Subtweet (the main term in the article that inspired this post)

• Original meaning: A social media term referring to a veiled criticism on Twitter.
• Current meaning: Refers to veiled criticisms on social media platforms in general. It can no longer refer to Twitter, as this is now “X.”

to Tape a programme on TV

• Original meaning: To record a TV programme on magnetic tape using a video recorder.
• Current meaning: To record video digitally, with no tape involved.

Tin foil

• Original meaning: Thin sheets of metal made from tin, used for cooking or wrapping.
• Current meaning: Typically refers to aluminium foil, as tin is no longer in common use.

Track (music)

• Original meaning: Refers to the grooves on a vinyl record. One song is one long winding track around the record. Between songs, there was a break in the track, meaning the first song was the first “track”, etc.
• Current meaning: A single piece of audio in an album or playlist.

Double anachronyms

Album

• Original meaning: A physical folder for holding records together; in the time of 78 rpm records, one record could only play for 3.5 minutes. Longer pieces of music were therefore released in albums. (If you wanted to hear a longer piece of music, you had to keep putting the next record onto your player!)
• Next meaning: A long-player record with several songs
• Current meaning: A digital collection of songs released together.

Dashboard

• Original meaning: A wooden board fixed to a carriage to protect the driver from mud or other debris “dashed up” (thrown up) by the horses’ hooves
• Next meaning: a control panel in a car
• Current meaning: a digital interface on a device or software. (Not sure if we can call this one a double anachronym, as of course the dashboard of a car is not outdated technology – I’ll have to think of a better term…)

to Hang up the phone

• Original meaning: To physically hang the earpiece of a phone onto a hook on the wall.
• Next meaning: To place a telephone receiver back on its cradle (which is not really hanging, but more like placing or putting, so it was already an anachronym at this point)
• Current meaning: To end a phone call, typically by pressing a button or tapping a screen.

to Log in

• Original meaning: if you wanted to know how fast your ship was going, you would drop a log over the side. The log would stay more or less in place, while the ship moved away. The log was tied to a piece of string with knots at regular intervals. You could then count how fast the knots were passing over the side of your ship in 30 seconds. (Hence knots for speed). The speeds were recorded in the logbook.
• Next meaning: the ship’s logbook became a book to record all kinds of important events on the ship, not just the speed
• Next meaning: a logbook became a physical book that was used in all kinds of situations where records needed to be kept over time. One such usage was a logbook for people going in and out of a building.
• Current meaning: to enter your username and password into a computer program to be able to start using it

Fake anachronyms

File

• Original meaning: A physical folder or envelope for holding papers.
• Current meaning: A digital document stored on a computer or device. (Doesn’t make the list, because it went from meaning a whole folder, to a single document/ picture. Why?)

Horsepower

Horsepower was always used to compare power stemming from technology to the number of horses that could, in theory, do the same thing; it was popularised by James Watt to talk about power from steam engines. People using four horses to drag a cart full of stones would have never said “this cart has four horse-power”.

Pencil lead

• Original meaning: Refers to the material used in pencils, originally thought to be made of lead but actually composed of graphite. (It doesn’t make the list, because it was never lead)
• Current meaning: The graphite core in modern pencils.

Skeuomorphs; the visual counterparts of anachronyms

A skeuomorph is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues from structures that were necessary in the original (source)

• A lamp that looks like a candle
• The “save” icon on our computers that looks like a floppy disk
• The opened and closed envelope to show when emails are opened or unopened
• The little ribbon on female underpants that hark back to the time before elastic, when you had to tie the waistband yourself
• Decorative pillars in rooms and on the outside of buildings
• Plastic that has been made to look like wood, on floors, for example
• Buttons on websites that have been made to look like real 3D buttons
• Those little trains in tourist towns that are actually just a buggy pulling some carts

Gesture counterparts

Is it a skeuomorph if it is a gesture? I don’t know, but people had some great “gestures that refer to outdated technology” on Bluesky, so I would be remiss not to mention them here!

• Pretending to do a phone call by sticking out the little finger and the thumb 🤙
• Spin your hand to signal rolling the car window down
• Writing in the air, as if writing a check, to signal to the waiter that you want to pay your bill

Audio counterparts

This article is doing numbers on Bluesky, and some people over there have noted that there are also sounds that hark back to older technology

• The sound of a camera shutter when taking a photo with your phone
• The ringing of a mobile phone which sounds like a mechanical ring
• The “ca-ching” sound that signifies making money, which comes from the sound of old, mechanical cash-registers

Where does the word anachronym come from?

Thanks to the excellent account Quote Investigator on Bluesky, I now know the origin of this term.

Linguist Ben Zimmer was credited with coining anachronym because he used it in an interview with Adrienne LaFrance of The Atlantic back in Mar. 2014, for a piece she wrote about the word selfie. Zimmer, however, says that he did not coin it, but learned it online. He thinks he must have learned it from this message on the American Dialect Society mailing list from 2012.

(I personally think that message looks as if that person had also learned the word from somewhere else – who knows!).

Full story here.

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Photo credit: Bruno Cantuária, Pexels