calends

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English kalendes,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French calendes^[6][7][8] and directly borrowed from Latin kalendae (“first day of the month”),^[2][3][9][7] also spelled calendae,^[8][5] from calō (“to call, proclaim”),^[6][5][7][9] because the order of the days was proclaimed on that day.^[6][7] Old English already had calend (“a month; an appointed time”),^[10][11] which Klein and the Shorter Oxford connect with the later plural.^[5][7] The verb is related to Ancient Greek καλέω (kaléō, “I call”),^[5][6] and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kele- (“to shout”).^[12][2] Dictionary.com is more cautious, saying that the Latin noun is perhaps formed on the base of the verb.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, before 1000, a month or an appointed time, as in the Menologium's Calend Martius, the fierce month of March.^[11][10][7] Etymonline first finds the word about 1200, for a day reckoned backward from the first of the following month, the fourteenth calend of March being 16 February.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Rome the calends were the day when debts fell due and accounts were reckoned, and when the priests announced the new moon.^[12] The English word first followed Roman dating, and the OED says it stayed more or less in real use for the first day of a month down to the 17th century.^[11] Since this was a beginning, Chaucer and Gower used it figuratively for a beginning or prelude, a sense lost by the early 17th century.^{[11][7][13][14]} Bible translators used it for the Jewish festival of the new moon, from before 1382 to 1609.^[11][15] Chaucer also had calends of exchange, perhaps a money-changer's reckoning,^[11] and a calends could be a calendar or record from 1470.^[11] Johnson (1755) knew only the Roman day, and noted that the word has no singular.^[16] The phrase Greek calends, for a time that never comes, translates Latin ad kalendas graecas: the Greeks did not reckon by calends.^[3][11] In Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, the name was given in the 19th century to the footpath leading to a church, as at Bredon and Ludlow, also as kallings in Shropshire.^[17] Wright compares Medieval Latin kalenda (“the point where something begins”).^[17]

Timeline

• before 1000 – calend, a month; an appointed time.^[11][10]
• c. 1200 – a day reckoned backward from the first of the following month.^[12]
• c. 1374 – figurative, a beginning, a prelude (obsolete by 1618); calends of exchange.^[11][15]
• before 1382 – the Jewish festival of the new moon (obsolete by 1609).^[11][15]
• 1398 – the first day of a month in the Roman calendar.^[11][15] Etymonline dates this to the mid-14th century.^[12]
• 1470 – a calendar, a record.^[11][15]
• 1643 – settling day, when debts and interest fell due.^[11]
• before 1649 – on the Greek calends, never.^[11]
• 1856 – in Worcestershire, the path that leads to the church at Bredon.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The first day of a month in the ancient Roman calendar, from which the days were counted backward to the ides; also spelled kalends.^[9][3][11]
2. Greek calends: a time that will never come: He promised to repay the loan at the Greek calends.^[3][11][7]
3. In Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire dialect, the footpath leading to a church.^[17]
4. (obsolete, c. 1374–1618) A beginning or prelude.^[11][7]
5. (obsolete, before 1382–1609) The Jewish festival of the new moon.^[11][7]
6. (rare) A calendar or record.^[11][7]

Word family

• Greek calends

Related words

• calendar
• intercalary
• calendula
• council
• conciliate
• claim

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)