Month

Month - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Among the Egyptians the month of thirty days each was in use long before the time of the Exodus, and formed the basis of their calculations. From the time of the institution of the Mosaic law the month among the Jews was lunar. The cycle of religious feasts depended on the moon. The commencement of a month was determined by the observation of the new moon. The number of months in the year was usually twelve (1 Kings 4:7; 1 Chr. 27:1-15); but every third year an additional month (ve-Adar) was inserted, so as to make the months coincide with the seasons.

"The Hebrews and Phoenicians had no word for month save 'moon,' and only saved their calendar from becoming vague like that of the Moslems by the interpolation of an additional month. There is no evidence at all that they ever used a true solar year such as the Egyptians possessed. The latter had twelve months of thirty days and five epagomenac or odd days.", Palestine Quarterly, January 1889.

Month - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

MONTH, n. [L. mensis; Gr. a month, from the moon.] A space or period of time constituting a division of the year. Month originally signified the time of one revolution of the moon, a lunation, or the period from one change or conjunction of the moon with the sun to another, a period of 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes and 5 seconds. This is the periodical month, or as we generally call it, the lunar month. In this sense we still use the word month. But we also apply the term to the space of time in which the sun passes through one sign, or a twelfth part of the zodiac. This period contains 30 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes, 5 seconds, and it called a solar month. In the year, there are twelve solar months, and thirteen lunar months.

In popular language, four weeks are called a month, being nearly the length of the lunar month. A calendar month differs in some degree from a solar month; consisting of twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty or thirty one days, as the months stand in calendars or almanacs.