twelvemonth

T1W4E1L1V4E1M3O1N1T1H4
/ˈtwɛlvmʌnθ/obsolete/ˈtwɛlmʌnθ/

noun

A year.

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Meanings

nountwelvemonth (plural twelvemonths)

plural twelvemonths

  1. 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 169
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    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 Academy

    Take 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 166

    For, 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 196

    She 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 2

    The 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

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Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

  1. Old Englishtwelfmōnþ
  2. Middle Englishtwelmonth
  3. Englishtwelvemonth

From Middle English twelmonth, twelfmonthe, twelfmonþe, from Old English twelfmōnþ, twelfmōnaþ, equivalent to twelve + month.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

twelvemonth. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth

MLA

“twelvemonth.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “twelvemonth,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/twelvemonth.

Source: twelvemonth on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.