Note 17 — Chapter I · Earliest Stages of Astronomy.

Cicero derives this word from the verb to measure: “quia mensa spatia conficiunt, menses nominantur;” and other etymologists, with similar views, connect the above-mentioned words with the Hebrew manah, to measure (with which the Arabic word almanach is connected). Such a derivation would have some analogy with that of annus, &c., noticed above: but if we are to attempt to ascend to the earliest condition of language, we must conceive it probable that men would have a name for a most conspicuous visible object, the moon, before they would have a verb denoting the very abstract and general notion, to measure.