Definition of "calends"

The Roman Month its ſeveral days divides / By reckoning backwards, Calends, Nones, and Ides.

1679, Joseph Moxon, “Calends”, in Mathematicks Made Easie: Or, A Mathematical Dictionary, Explaining the Terms of Art, and Difficult Phrases Used in Arithmetick, Geometry, Astronomy, Astrology, and Other Mathematical Sciences. […], London: Printed for Joseph Moxon, […], page 26

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.

1694, Samuel Johnson, “Of the Kalends of May”, in An Essay Concerning Parliaments at a Certainty; or, The Kalends of May, 2nd edition, London: Printed for the author; to be sold by Richard Baldwin, page 30

The Romans did not, as we do, count the days of the month in a regular numerical succession, but reckoned them with reference to three principal points of time—the Calends, the Nones, and Ides. The first day of every month was entitled its Calends. [...] The Calends were originally the day of the new moon, which received its name from the fact that on that day the Pontifex addressed the moon in presence of the people, in the words "Calo te, Jana Novella," "I call upon thee, new moon," which was repeated as many times as intimated to his hearers the number of days before the arrival of the Nones.

1851, Henry T[homas] Riley, “Introduction. [On the Reckoning of Time among the Romans.]”, in Ovid, translated by Henry T. Riley, The Fasti, Tristia, Pontic Epstles, Ibis, and Halieuticon of Ovid. Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes, London: H[enry] G[eorge] Bohn, […], pages xiii–xiv

Let it not be lawful to use wicked observations of the calends, and to keep the gentiles' holy-days, nor to deck houses with bays or green boughs; for all this is an heathenish observation.

1852, John Whitgift, “Of the Communion Book. Tract IX. The General Faults Examined wherewith the Public Service is Charged by T[homas] C[artwright]”, in John Ayre, editor, The Works of John Whitgift, D.D., […] The Second Portion, Containing the Defence of the Answer to the Admonition against the Reply of Thomas Cartwright: Tractates VII–X (Publications of the Parker Society; no. 48), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Printed at the University Press, chapter i, 8th division, page 447

Among the ancient Romans it was an annual institution for every family to give a banquet, to which only near relatives were bidden. On this occasion family feuds were healed, and all envy, hatred, and malice, laid aside; as an emblem of restored harmony, gifts were interchanged. This ceremony took place during the festival known as Carisia, held in honour of the goddess Concord, and was celebrated during the eight days preceding the Calends of March (February 22 to March 1).

1911 March, E. C. Vansittart, “Some Roman Festivals and Customs: Ancient and Modern”, in The Antiquary: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past, volume XLVII, London: Elliot Stock, […], pages 90–91

If January calends be summerly gay, / 'Twill be winterly weather till the calend of May.

1920 January 2, “General. Live Stock Lore of the Months.”, in Live Stock Journal, volume XCI, number 2387, London: Vinton & Co., section I (January), page 20, column 3

Blockheads, friends of my heart and liver, cousins of my tripe, are you ignorant that this symposium is as authentic as any of those tales of the Greek Calends, which you swallow and digest so easily, [...]?

1923, François Béroalde de Verville, “Origin of the Decretals”, in Arthur Machen, transl., Fantastic Tales or The Way to Attain—a Book Full of Pantagruelism Now Done for the First Time in English, Carbonnek [i.e., London]: Privately printed, page 98

My book with Professor [John Ronald Reuel] Tolkien – any book in collaboration with that great but dilatory and unmethodical man – is dated, I fear, to appear on the Greek Kalends!

1950 January 12, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “Letters: 1950 [To Sister Penelope CSMV (BOD)]”, in Walter Hooper, editor, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, volumes III (Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963), New York, N.Y.: HarperSanFrancisco, HarperCollins, published 2007, pages 5–6

The interesting thing about these ceremonies is that they must have originated in a period when the Romans were using true lunar months based on the observation of the crescent moon. The Kalends then would have been the day after the evening on which the crescent had been first sighted, the Nones would have been the first day when the moon was at the first quarter [...] In the calendar of the late Republic the lunar months have disappeared and the days have been fixed into a rigid pattern.

1967, Agnes Kirsopp Michels, “The Pre-Julian Calendar”, in The Calendar of the Roman Republic, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, part I (The Calendar of the First Century B.C.), page 21

[March, May, Quintilis, and October] also have their Nones on the seventh, as Numa [Pompilius] ordained, because Julius Caesar changed nothing about them. As for January, Sextilis, and December, they still have their Nones on the fifth, though they began to have thirty-one days after Caesar added two days to each, and it is nineteen days from their Ides to the following Kalends, because in adding the two days Caesar did not want to insert them before either the Nones or the Ides, lest an unprecedented postponement mar religious observance associated with the Nones or Ides themselves, which have a fixed date.

2011, Macrobius, chapter 14, in Robert A. Kaster, transl., Saturnalia (Loeb Classical Library), Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press, book I, section 9, page 171

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.

1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], “To the Parlament of England, with the Assembly”, in The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.]

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, [...]

1809, Claude Fleury, “Their Religion”, in Adam Clarke, transl., The Manners of the Ancient Israelites; […], 3rd edition, London: Sold by William Baynes, […]; J[oseph] Butterworth, […]; and T. Blanshard, […], page 147

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, [...]

1846, [Wilhelm] Gesenius, “חֹדֶשׁ”, in Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, transl., Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. Translated, with Additions and Corrections from the Author’s Thesaurus and Other Works, London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, […], page CCLXIII, column 1

[...] now doth [John] Oldcastle shine: / Him for a Saint within your Kalends hold.

1601, Jo[hn] Weever, The Mirror of Martyrs, or The Life and Death of that Thrice Valiant Captaine, and Most Godly Martyre Sir Iohn Old-castle Knight Lord Cobham, [London]: Printed by V[alentine] S[immes] for William Wood; republished in The Hystorie of the Most Noble Knight Plasidas, and Other Rare Pieces; Collected into One Book by Samuel Pepys, […], London: [Printed for the Roxburghe Club by] J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Sons, […], 1873, page 239

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.

1909, A[rthur] W[ade] Wade-Evans, “English Translation of Harleian Ms. 4353 (V) with the Missing Leaves Supplied from Cleopatra A xiv (W)”, in Welsh Medieval Law: Being a Text of the Laws of Howel the Good: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: At the Clarendon Press, page 220