Monath

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete spelling of month, referring to a period of time measured by the cycle of the moon or the calendar
2. An old variant spelling of the word for the division of a year into roughly twelve parts, based on lunar or calendar cycles
3. A archaic form of month, denoting one of the twelve periods that make up a calendar year

Etymology: Old English "mōnaþ" is the ancestor of the modern "month," and it is built on the same root as "moon" ("mōna"). The sky's most visible cycle gave the Germanic peoples their unit of time, so the word for a month is, at heart, a word for a moon. The shared root points back to a prehistoric form, *mēnōþs, that also gave Old Norse "máðr" and Old High German "māno." The ending "-aþ" is a suffix that formed nouns from the base, and the same root's relatives show the link clearly. Over time the Old English "þ" was written as "th," which is why the spelling looks so different from its ancestor, though the word's meaning of a moon-marked span of time has stayed constant.

Synonyms: month