Meanings
plural twelvemonths
- datedA year.
But last February, almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared.
1811, [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 1695 more examples
But her misfortunes were not here to end: for within a twelvemonth after the death of her husband, she was deprived of both her children by a violent fever that then raged in the country; […]
1749, Sarah Fielding, The Governess; Or, The Little Female AcademyTake the annals of the majority of hearths for a twelvemonth, and we should be amazed at the quantity of wretchedness that would be writ in them, if writ truly.
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XX, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 166For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; […]
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 196She was ill very nigh a twelvemonth altogether; and I had to nurse her as best as I could, and clean the house, and cook, and make her gruel and everything, for we could not afford to pay a woman to help us.
1861 December, “Autobiography of a Navvy”, in David Masson, editor, Macmillan’s Magazine, volume V, number 26, Cambridge, Cambs.; London: Macmillan and Co. […], published 1862, chapter VII (Our Last Tramp), page 151, column 2The time of year a twelvemonth past, / When Fred and I would meet, / We needs must jangle, till at last / We fought and I was beat.
1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXV”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 36
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna period of time containing 365 (or 366) days
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Old Englishtwelfmōnþ
- Middle Englishtwelmonth
- Englishtwelvemonth
From Middle English twelmonth, twelfmonthe, twelfmonþe, from Old English twelfmōnþ, twelfmōnaþ, equivalent to twelve + month.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
twelvemonth. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth
“twelvemonth.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “twelvemonth,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth.
Source: twelvemonth on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.