Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An annual publication including calendars with weather forecasts, astronomical information, tide tables, and other related tabular information.
  • noun A usually annual reference book composed of various lists, tables, and often brief articles relating to a particular field or many general fields.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A yearly calendar showing the correspondence between the days of the week and the days of the month, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the changes of the moon and of the tides, and other astronomical data, and usually also the ecclesiastical fasts and feasts, chronological information, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A book or table, containing a calendar of days, and months, to which astronomical data and various statistics are often added, such as the times of the rising and setting of the sun and moon, eclipses, hours of full tide, stated festivals of churches, terms of courts, etc.
  • noun an almanac, or year book, containing astronomical calculations (lunar, stellar, etc.), and other information useful to mariners.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun astronomy, navigation A book or table listing nautical, astronomical, astrological or other events for the year; sometimes, but not essentially, containing historical and statistical information.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an annual publication including weather forecasts and other miscellaneous information arranged according to the calendar of a given year
  • noun an annual publication containing tabular information in a particular field or fields arranged according to the calendar of a given year

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English almenak, from Medieval Latin almanach, from medieval scientific Arabic al-manāḫ, the calendar : Arabic al-, the + medieval scientific Arabic manāḫ, calendar (variant of Arabic munāḫ, halting place, caravan stop (probably applied metaphorically to the position of celestial bodies), abode, from ’anāḫa, to make (a camel) lie down, from nāḫa, to lie down, rest; see nwḫ in Semitic roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French almanach, from Medieval Latin almanachus, from Andalusian Arabic  (almanak, "almanac, calendar") > or, from Arabic المناخ (al-manāx, "climate"), from Late Ancient Greek ἀλμενιχιακά ("calendar"), probably ultimately of Coptic origin. Possibly the central syllable -man- is cognate with moon and month, or else was influenced by Proto-Indo-European *mens- (“moon, month”), from Proto-Indo-European base *me- (to measure).

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