apochronicity, n. also apochronistic adj. The non-existence of time.
First discovered in 1907 by the Viennese physicist-philosopher Avgard von Bremner, the concept of apochronicity initially befuddled those in international physics circles, who questioned the possibility of a world, place, thing, or being without time.
"I spent some months pondering the dilemma," wrote eminent physicist and contemporary of von Bremner, Stanislav Schmidt, in his 1948 memoir. "What was a world without time? The apparent ubiquity of temporality seemed to preclude even the possibility of apochronicity. But, ironically, the more time I spent on the problem, the more it seemed to make sense. Days merged into weeks, weeks into months. Time exists, yes. But does it exist for everyone? For everything? von Bremner opened doors that were previously inconceivable."
Throughout the second decade of the twentieth century, as the notion of apochronicity gained traction, waggish physics students at the university at which von Bremner was professor would cite it as a reason for non-attendance or failure to deliver assessments.
Around this time, however, we see attempts to carry the concept across to broader language, viz.:
"The sphinx loomed apochronistically in the half-light. Beside it, Terence spied Lettice's skirts shifting petulantly in the warm night air." Babette Ford, Love in the Shadows of Pharaohs, Faber, 1913.
"The village shaman has feathers in his hair, a bone in his nose, and an altogether apochronistic gleam in his eye." John Lynch, On the Serengeti, Cassell and Co., 1915.
"It is by the grace, goodness and apochronicity of God's benevolence -- and by no other means -- that we are granted access to eternal paradise." Sheldon Snaith, "Paradise Found", The Watchtower, Issue 9, 1916.
The usage of this term has contracted in recent decades, however the apochronicity of its meaning hints that it will remain in usage for no little time to come.
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