English [ edit ]

Etymology [ edit ]

From Ancient Greek ἀνά (aná, “against”) and τόπος (tópos, “place”); apparently by analogy with anachronism.

Noun [ edit ]

anatopism (plural anatopisms)

( rare ) A thing that is out of its proper place; the geographic counterpart to anachronism. A war elephant described rampaging through Tenochtitlan in a novel about the Aztec Empire would be an anatopism.

Quotations [ edit ]

1836 : Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq., M. A., ed, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge [ … ] and can find no associates in size at a less distance than two centuries; and in arranging which the puzzled librarian must commit an anachronism in order to avoid an anatopism .

: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq., M. A., ed, 1912 : Augustus Hopkins Strong, Miscellanies There is no anachronism in putting them together; it is a sort of anatopism rather; the painter has placed within our view two scenes which no mortal eye could have witnessed at the same time.

: Augustus Hopkins Strong, 1921 : John Anthony Scott, The Unity of Homer It is a remarkable fact that, so far as I can judge, no case of local inconsistency, not a single anatopism , can be brought home to the Iliad.

: John Anthony Scott, 1995 : Tony Killick, The Flexible Economy: Causes and Consequences of the Adaptability of National Economies Much of the literature on the 'Japanese Miracle' (as well as on that vast anatopism , the transfer of Japanese recipes to Western countries) expatiates on [ … ]

: Tony Killick, 2006: Lilie Chouliaraki, The Spectatorship of Suffering [ … ] the semiotic mechanism of reorganizing space in this manner as an anatopism. Anatopism renders places such as Bali equivalents of other places [ … ]

Translations [ edit ]

thing that is out of its proper place Portuguese: anatopismo m