ALMANACK

ALMANACK, or Ephemeris, a Calendar or Table, wherein are set down the Days, and Feasts of the Year, the Course of the Moon, &c. See CALENDAR, YEAR, DAY, MONTH, MOON, &c. The Original of the Word is much controverted among Grammarians.—Some derive it from the Arabic Particle Al, and Mana, to count.—Others, and among them Scaliger, rather derive it from Al, and menaxds, the Course of the Months: Which is contradicted by Golius, who advances another Opinion; He says, that throughout the East, it's the Custom for Subjects, at the Beginning of the Year, to make Presents to their Princes; and among the rest, the Astrologers present them with their Ephemerides for the Year ensuing; whence those Ephemerides came to be called al-manha, i.e. Handfuls, or New-Years Gifts. See EPHEMERIDES.



To say no more, Verstegan writes the Name Almon-ac and makes it of Saxon Origin: Our Ancestors, he observes, used to carve the Courses of the Moon of the whole Year upon a square Stick, or Block of Wood, which they called Al-monaght, q. d. Al-moon-head.

The modern Almanack answers to the Fasti of the ancient Romans. See FASTI.

he Necessaries for making an Almanack, the Reader will find under the Article Calendar. Henry VI. of France, very prudently decreed by an Ordonnance of 1579, that 'No Almanack-Maker should presume to give Predictions relating to Civil Affairs, either of States or private Persons, in Terms either express or covert,’ See ASTROLOGY. In the Philosoph. Collec. we have a perpetual Almanack described by Mr. R. Wood.

ALMANACK