(illustration to 4.390)

Selden’s use of ‘antichronism’ makes for a particularly interesting comparison with the roughly comparable ‘anachronism’, which it predates. Where Selden’s word literally means a contradiction of chronology, being constructed directly from the Greek for ‘against’ and ‘time’, ‘anachronism’ is brought into English via the French anachronisme, which is less specific, carrying the resonances of an incorrect time as well as of an event that takes place backwards. The first recorded usage of ‘anachronism’ is in 1646, so it is possible that it was being used at the time Selden was writing and that he deliberately chose to use his own word for a greater degree of specificity.