Etymology: < (i) Middle French almanac, almanach, almenach (French almanach , †almanac ) calendar containing astronomical data and astrological predictions (1303 in Old French), and its etymon (ii) post-classical Latin almanac, almanach (from 12th cent. in continental sources, from 13th cent. in British sources) < Spanish Arabic al-manāḵ < al the + manāḵ calendar (13th cent. in Vocabulista, glossed ‘cubile’ and ‘kalendarium’; also 15th cent. in Pedro de Alcalá, who gives the Arabic noun as a gloss for Spanish almanaque ), further etymology uncertain and disputed: perhaps (i) a variant (with specific semantic development) of classical Arabic munāḵ place where a camel kneels, station on a journey, halt at the end of a day's travel, hence (in extended use) place of residence (see further below); or perhaps (ii) < Syriac lĕ-manḥay in the next year (Peshitta, Luke 13:9), with reanalysis of the preposition lĕ ‘to’ as the Arabic definite article al (so J. Bidez ‘Le nom et l'origine de nos almanachs’, in Mélanges Émile Boisacq (1937) I. 77–85). Classical Arabic munāḵ is the verbal noun of 'anāḵa to make (a camel) kneel; it functions as a noun of action (i.e. ‘halt at the end of a day's travel’) and a noun of place (i.e. ‘stopping place’). The assumed semantic development from the concrete classical Arabic senses of the verbal noun to the sense ‘calendar’ has a parallel in the semantic development of climate n.¹; in fact, munāḵ , manāḵ is the usual modern standard Arabic word for ‘climate’. Compare Occitan almanac (1548 as †almanatz ), Catalan almanac (14th cent.), Spanish almanaque (first quarter of the 15th cent.), Portuguese almanaque (15th cent. as †almenaque ), Italian almanacco (a1348 as †almanaco in sense 1, 1725 in sense 2); also Middle Dutch almanag (1426; Dutch almanak, †almanack), Middle Low German almanak, almenak, almanach, almenach, etc., German Almanach (early 15th cent.; < Middle Dutch). Alternative suggestions for the ulterior etymology. It has also sometimes been suggested that post-classical Latin almanac, almanach is derived < Hellenistic Greek ἀλμενιχιακά (neuter plural), denoting an astrological treatise (4th cent. a.d.: Eusebius De Praeparatio Evangelica 3. 4, citing Porphyrius concerning the Egyptian belief in astrology, in horoscopes, and so-called lords of the ascendant, ‘whose names are given in the almenichiaka, with their various powers to cure diseases, their risings and settings, and their presages of things future’). However, this Greek form in the text of Eusebius probably shows a scribal error for an original neuter plural noun σαλμεσχινιακά, which is of unknown origin. Variant pronunciations. Pronunciations with reduction of the unstressed vowels in the second or third syllable, or in both of these syllables, to /ɪ/ are widespread in regional and nonstandard use.

Etymology: < almanac n.