chronogram

American  

[kron-uh-gram] / ˈkrɒn əˌgræm /

noun

1. an inscription in which certain Roman numeral letters express a date or epoch on being added together by their values.

2. a record made by a chronograph.

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chronogram British  

/ ˌkrɒnəʊɡrəˈmætɪk, ˈkrəʊnə-, ˈkrɒnəˌɡræm /

noun

1. a phrase or inscription in which letters such as M, C, X, L and V can be read as Roman numerals giving a date

2. a record kept by a chronograph

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Other Word Forms

• chronogrammatic adjective
• chronogrammatical adjective
• chronogrammatically adverb
• chronogrammatist noun

Etymology

Origin of chronogram

First recorded in 1615–25; chrono- + -gram ¹

Example Sentences

“We don’t really have a very fixed chronogram right now, so our next step is to do these experiments with the blind users. We are also arranging with a retail company here in Brazil to do some experiments in a real supermarket. We believe that next year, we will probably have some more interesting results with real scenarios and real users.”

From Forbes

Translation for humans: 'chronogram' is an "aren't we sophisticated in our clever use of silly, opaque, uneccessary jargon" version of 'timeline'.

From Scientific American

—I doubt not the accuracy of Sir Nicholas Tindal's copy of the inscription, but I suspect that the painter of the red capitals made a mistake, and that the d in the word cedit should have been the red letter instead of the e; if so, the chronogram would be as follows M.DCCVVVVIIIIIIIII, i.e.

From Project Gutenberg

H. F. The red letters undoubtedly compose a chronogram; E in such compositions represents 250.

From Project Gutenberg

It might be supposed to be a chronogram, but for the introduction of the letter "E."

From Project Gutenberg