ALMANACK. A book or table, containing a calendar of days and months, the rising and setting of the sun, the age of the moon, the eclipses of both luminaries, &c.—Authors are divided with regard to the etymology of the word; some deriving it from the Arabic particle al and manach, to count; some from almanach, new-years gifts, because the Arabian astrologers used at the beginning of the year to make presents of their ephemerides; and others, from the Teutonic almaen achte, observations on all the months. Dr Johnson derives it from the Arabic particle al, and the Greek μην, a month. But the most simple etymology appears from the common spelling; the word being composed of two Arabic ones, Al Manack, which signify the Diary. All the classes of Arabs are commonly much given to the study of astronomy and astrology; to both which a pastoral life, and a sort of husbandry, not only incline them, but afford time and opportunity to cultivate them. They neither sow, reap, plant, travel, buy or sell, or undertake any expedition or business, without previously consulting the stars, or, in other words, their almanacks, or some of the markers of them. From these people, by their vicinity to Europe, this art, no less useful in one sense than trifling and ridiculous in another, hath passed over hither: and those astronomical compositions have still everywhere not only retained their old-Arabic name; but were, like theirs, for a long while, and still are among many European nations, interspersed with a great number of astrological rules for planting, sowing, bleeding, purging, &c. down to the cutting of the hair and paring of the nails.—Regiomontanus appears to have been the first in Europe, however, who reduced almanacks into their present form and method, gave the characters of each