出典:Wiktionary
From Middle English calendes, calendas, calendis, kalandes, kalendas, kalendes, kalendez, kalendis, kalendus (also in the singular forms calende, kalend, kalende),[1][2] from Latin kalendās, accusative plural of kalendae (“first day of a Roman month”),[2] an archaic variant of calandae, from calandus (“which is to be called または announced solemnly”), the future passive participle of calō (“to call, announce solemnly”) (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 Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call, cry, summon”). Although the singular form calend (now 廃れた用法, まれに) appeared in English (and compare 古期英語 calend, kalendus (“calends; a month”)), no singular form was used in Latin as recurring days of the calendar were always referred to in the plural.[3]
Sense 2 (“a day for settling debts かつ other accounts”) refers to the Roman practice of fixing the calends as the day for debts to be paid.[4]
calends pl (複数形 only)
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” (a.d. iii Kal. Ian.) 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 ante diem. The 30th of December may appear as the “third calends of January” or the “third of the calends of January”. Thus, the “second calends” (pridie kalendas) of a month is the last day of the month before it; the “third calends” (tertia kalendas) is the day before that; and so on.[5] 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 kalends is more common in modern classical scholarship, reflecting the Roman preference for that spelling.
出典:Wikipedia
出典:『Wikipedia』 (2011/01/26 12:41 UTC 版)
The Calends (Latin Kalendae "the called", gen. plural -arum), correspond to the first days of each month of the Roman calendar. The Romans assigned these calends to the first day of the month, signifying the start of the new moon cycle. On that day, the pontiffs would announce at the Curia Calabra the rest days for the upcoming month, and the debtors had to pay off their debts that were inscribed in the calendaria, a sort of accounts book. The date (in this calendar system) was measured relative to days such as the Calends, Nones or Ides, for example, in modern terms, three days past Calends would be the 4th of the month. This sort of system would be used to date documents, diary entries, etc.