calends

Etymology
From, , , , , , , , (also in the  forms , , ), from ,   of , an archaic variant of , from , the    of  (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. Although the singular form  appeared in English (and compare 🇨🇬, ), 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.

Noun

 * 1) Often with initial capital: the first day of a month.
 * 2)  The first day of a month of the Roman calendar.
 * 3)  A day for settling debts and other accounts.
 * 4)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 5)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  The first day of a month of the Roman calendar.
 * 2)  A day for settling debts and other accounts.
 * 3)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 4)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  The first day of a month of the Roman calendar.
 * 2)  A day for settling debts and other accounts.
 * 3)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 4)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  The first day of a month of the Roman calendar.
 * 2)  A day for settling debts and other accounts.
 * 3)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 4)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 2)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  ;  an account, a record.
 * 2)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  The first day of something; a beginning.
 * 1)  The first day of something; a beginning.

Usage notes
English use of the Roman calendrical term always employs the Romans’ inclusive dating, including the calends itself when counting. Thus, the “third day before the calends of January” is 30 December: two days before 1 January, not three.

English usage also often follows the Latin contraction of the phrasing, which omits the words. The 30th of December may appear as the “third calends of January” or the “third of the calends of January”. Thus, the “second calends” of a month is the last day of the month before it; the “third calends”  is the day before that; and so on. Because Julius Caesar did not want to move the religious holidays set by nones and ides of the months, he inserted all the additional days of his calendar reform in various places before the calends of the months. The Roman leap day was similarly intercalated as a “second sixth calends” on 25 February in order to avoid affecting the existing holidays of that month.

The variant spelling is more common in modern classical scholarship, reflecting the Roman preference for that spelling.

Translations

 * Arabic: غُرَّة
 * Basque: kalenda
 * Breton: calendae
 * Bulgarian: календи
 * Catalan:
 * Corsican: calenda
 * Czech: kalendy
 * Dutch: kalenden
 * Esperanto: kalendoj
 * Estonian: kalendid
 * French:
 * Galician: calendas,
 * German: Kalenden
 * Greek:
 * Hebrew:
 * Irish: calláin
 * Italian:
 * Latin:
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål: kalendae
 * Nynorsk: kalendae
 * Occitan:
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese:
 * Russian:
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Cyrillic: калѐнде
 * Roman:
 * Sicilian: carènnuli
 * Slovak: kalendy
 * Slovene: kalende
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish: calends
 * Ukrainian: календи