Dictionary

anatopism en · NOUN

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (rare) A thing that is out of its proper place; the geographic counterpart to anachronism.
   • […] 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. 1836: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq., M. A., ed, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
   • 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. 1912, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Miscellanies:
   • 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. 1921, John Anthony Scott, The Unity of Homer:
   • […] the semiotic mechanism of reorganizing space in this manner as an anatopism. Anatopism renders places such as Bali equivalents of other places […] 2006, Lilie Chouliaraki, The Spectatorship of Suffering:
   • 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 […] 1995, Tony Killick, The Flexible Economy: Causes and Consequences of the Adaptability of National Economies:
   • A war elephant described rampaging through Tenochtitlan in a novel about the Aztec Empire would be an anatopism.

Forms

Relateds

anatopistic

Translations (3)

hu anatopizmus (thing that is out of its proper place) · pl anatopizm (thing that is out of its proper place) · pt anatopismo (thing that is out of its proper place)