Emily Dickinson Lexicon

AN'NALS, n. [plur. L. annales, annalis, from annus, a year, the root of which may be the Celtic an, ain, a great circle. Varro says the word annus signifies a great circle.]

1. A species of history digested in order of time, or a relation of events in chronological order, each event being recorded under the year in which it happened. Annals differ from history, in merely relating events, without observations on the motives, causes, and consequences, which, in history, are more diffusively illustrated.
2. The books containing annals; as the Annals of Tacitus.