Emily Dickinson Lexicon

AL'MA-NAC, n. [Ar. al and مَنَخٌ manach, manack, a calendar, or diary.]

A small book or table, containing a calendar of days, weeks and months, with the times of the rising of the sun and moon, changes of the moon, eclipses, hours of full tide, stated festivals of churches, stated terms of courts, observations on the weather, &c. for the year ensuing. This calendar is sometimes published on one side of a single sheet, and called a sheet-almanac. The Baltic nations formerly engraved their calendars on pieces of wood, on swords, helves of axes, and various other utensils, and especially on walking-sticks. Many of these are preserved in the cabinets of the curious. They are called by different nations, rimstocks, primstaries, runstocks, runstaffs, clogs, &c. The characters used are generally the Runic or Gothic. – Junius. Encyc. Tooke's Russia.