time warp

noun

1. a hypothetical eccentricity in the progress of time that would allow movement back and forth between eras or that would permit the passage of time to be suspended.

time warp

noun

1. any distortion of space-time
2. a hypothetical distortion of time in which people and events from one age can be imagined to exist in another age
3. informal.
   an illusion in which time appears to stand still

   he is living in a time warp

Word History and Origins

Origin of time warp¹

First recorded in 1950–55

Idioms and Phrases

A stoppage in the passage of time; also, a distortion of time whereby an event or person could hypothetically move from one era to another. For example, Nothing in their lives has changed since the sixties; they're in a time warp , or Having a seventy-year-old actress portray a teenager—that was some time warp! This term originated in science fiction, where it signifies “a supernatural movement from one era to another,” and came to be used more loosely. [c. 1950]

Example Sentences

Indeed, Americans have been tussling over the time warp for well over a century now.

From Los Angeles Times

“I think that Biden is stuck in a much longer-term time warp. He just cannot see things such as… 57 years of occupation, the slaughter in Gaza, except through an Israeli lens,” he says.

From BBC

Hollywood may be frantically mining race for stories, but in the real world, the issue of racial ambiguity, of being neither Black nor white, seems caught in some retrograde time warp.

From Los Angeles Times

“It was an endless time warp of confusion.”

From New York Times

So it's kind of like a time warp.

From Salon