Almanac

almanac

[′ȯl·mə‚nak]

(science and technology)

A book that contains astronomical or meteorological data, arranged according to days, weeks, and months of a given year, and may also contain diverse information of a nonastronomical character.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The four sides of the clog almanac are shown extended to reveal the marks for each day. Reproduced by permission of Fortean Picture Library.

Almanac

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

An almanac is a book or booklet containing sets of tables, particularly calendrical tables, announcing astronomical or astrological events (such as Moon phases, eclipses, and beginnings of seasons) and carrying historical facts, information on planting by the signs, and other types of data. Older almanacs (the almanac tradition has been traced as far back as the Hellenistic period) contained prophetic announcements, a tradition carried on by modern almanacs, which usually predict the day-by-day weather on the basis of meteorological astrology. In U.S. history, the most well-known example was Poor Richard’s Almanac (1732–1757), which was issued by Benjamin Franklin. The Old Farmer’s Almanac remains popular in rural areas.

Sources:

DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

Gettings, Fred. Dictionary of Astrology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.

Thomas, Robert B. The Old Farmer’s 1991 Almanac. Dublin, NH: Yankee Publishing, 1990.

The Astrology Book, Second Edition © 2003 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Almanac

 

(1) A nonperiodic collection containing information from various fields of public activity such as literary news, scientific achievements, legislative changes, and so forth. Such almanacs are similar in type to so-called calendar-reference books.

(2) Literary almanac—a collection of literary works that are often united by some feature—theme, genre, school of thought, and so forth. They first appeared in Western Europe (France) in the middle of the 18th century and in Russia at the end of the 18th century.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.