FreeScrabbleDictionary

calends

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
10
Words With Friends
13
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/ˈkæləndz/
See all 2 pronunciations
/ˈkæləndz/ · /ˈkælɪndz/

Definition of calends

7 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (plural, plural-only)Often with initial capital: the first day of a month.
    “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.”
See all 7 definitions

noun

  1. (plural, plural-only)Often with initial capital: the first day of a month.
    “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.”
  2. (Ancient-Rome, historical, plural, plural-only)Often with initial capital: the first day of a month.
  3. (broadly, plural, plural-only)A day for settling debts and other accounts.
    “To expedite theſe knots were worthy a learned and memorable Synod; while our enemies expect to ſee the expectation of the Church tir'd out with dependencies and independencies how they will compound, and in what Calends.”
  4. (Judaism, broadly, obsolete, plural, plural-only)Synonym of Rosh Hodesh (“the Jewish festival of the new moon, which begins the months of the Hebrew calendar”).
    “The feasts of the Israelites were the Sabbath; the first day of each month, called in our translations calends, or new-moon; the three great feasts of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, instituted in memory of the three greatest blessings they received from God, […]”
    “חֹדֶשׁ m. […] the new moon, the day of the new moon, the calends of a lunar month which was a festival of the ancient Hebrews, Num[bers] 29:6; 1 Sam[uel] 20:5; 18:24; Ex[odus] 19:1, […]”
  5. (plural, plural-only, rare)Synonym of calendar; (figurative) an account, a record.
    “[N]ow doth [John] Oldcastle shine: / Him for a Saint within your Kalends hold.”
  6. (figuratively, obsolete, plural, plural-only)The first day of something; a beginning.
    “Whoever shall sell a calf or a yearling, let him be answerable against the scab from the calends of winter until the Feast of Patrick.”
  7. (form-of, obsolete, plural, rare)plural of calend

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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.

Anagrams of calends

3 plays · some not in Scrabble

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Words you can make from calends

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6-letter words

14 words

5-letter words

38 words

4-letter words

50 words

3-letter words

35 words

2-letter words

14 words

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