Accurate words and definitions always matter, however, it is often underappreciated how important this is in the study of history, especially regarding context-dependent words and meanings. A common historical error is anahcronism—a chronological inconsistency in which an object, person, or concept is inappropriately retrojected back into a time when it did not exist. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, for example, states, “The clock hath stricken three,” in a time period prior to mechanical clocks that struck. A subset of anachronism is failure to note how a word was used in a particular historical