Alʹmanac

is the Arabic al manac (the diary). Verstegen says it is the Saxon al-mon-aght (all moon heed), and that it refers to the tallies of the full and new moons kept by our Saxon ancestors. One of these tallies may still be seen at St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Before printing, or before it was common:

By Solomon Jarchi

in and after 1150

” Peter de Dacia

about 1300

” Walter de Elvendene

1327

” John Somers, Oxford

1380 ! !

” Nicholas de Lynna

1386

” Purbach

1150–1401

First printed by Gutenberg, at Mentz

1457

By Regiomontanus, at Nuremberg

1472–3

” Zainer, at Ulm

1478

” Richard Pynson (Sheapeheard’s Kalendar)

1497 ! !

” Stöffler, in Venice

1499

” Poor Robin’s Almanack

1652

” Francis Moore’s Almanack between

1698 and 1713

Stamp duty imposéd 1710, repealed 1834.

The Man iʹ the Almanac stuck with pins (Nat. Lee), is a man marked with points referring to signs of the zodiac, and intended to indicate the favourable and unfavourable times of letting blood.

I shanʹt consult your almanac (French), I shall not come to you to know what weather to expect. The reference is to the prognostications of weather in almanacs.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.