calends
/ˈkælɪndz/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.17 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Synonym of Rosh Hodesh (“the Jewish festival of the new moon, which begins the months of the Hebrew calendar”).
Obsolete
noun
Synonym of calendar; (figurative) an account, a record.
Example Sentences
- "The third day before the calends of February is 30 January, the third calends of March is 27 or 28 February, and the third of the calends of May is 29 April."
- "The Roman Month its ſeveral days divides / By reckoning backwards, Calends, Nones, and Ides."
- "Now by the ſame Rule, if there was a very Ancient Folkmote in the Neighbouring Kingdom of France upon every Kalends of May, then perhaps King Arthur borrowed from them; and it is good to look upon our Kalends, becauſe it is poſſible they may give Light to Ours."
- "The Poſt of ſwift-foot Time / Hath now at length begun / The Calends of our middle Age, / Our bloſſoms they are gone."
- "The Romans did not, as we do, count the days of the month in a regular numerical succession, but reckoned them with reference to three principal points of time—the Calends, the Nones, and Ides. The first day of every month was entitled its Calends. […] The Calends were originally the day of the new moon, which received its name from the fact that on that day the Pontifex addressed the moon in presence of the people, in the words "Calo te, Jana Novella," "I call upon thee, new moon," which was repeated as many times as intimated to his hearers the number of days before the arrival of the Nones."
- "Let it not be lawful to use wicked observations of the calends, and to keep the gentiles' holy-days, nor to deck houses with bays or green boughs; for all this is an heathenish observation."
Etymology
From Middle English calendes, calendas, calendis, kalandes, kalendas, kalendes, kalendez, kalendis, kalendus (also in the singular forms calende, kalend, kalende), from Latin kalendās, accusative plural of kalendae (“first day of a Roman month”), an archaic variant of calandae, from calandus (“which is to be called or announced solemnly”), the future passive participle of calō (“to call, announce solemnly”) (referring to the Roman practice of proclaiming the first days of the lunar month upon seeing the first signs of a new crescent moon), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call, cry, summon”). Although the singular form calend (now obsolete, rare) appeared in English (and compare Old English calend, kalendus (“calends; a month”)), no singular form was used in Latin as recurring days of the calendar were always referred to in the plural. Sense 2 (“a day for settling debts and other accounts”) refers to the Roman practice of fixing the calends as the day for debts to be paid.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *kelh₁-, calendes, kalendās
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkælɪndz/
- British English: /ˈkæləndz/