Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun plural A chronological record of the events of successive years.
  • noun plural A descriptive account or record; a history.
  • noun plural A periodical journal in which the records and reports of a learned field are compiled.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A history or relation of events recorded year by year, or connected by the order of their occurrence.
  • Hence Any formal account of events, discoveries, transactions of learned societies, etc.
  • Historical records generally.
  • Synonyms History, Chronicle, etc. See history, also list under chronicle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun plural A relation of events in chronological order, each event being recorded under the year in which it happened.
  • noun plural Historical records; chronicles; history.
  • noun plural The record of a single event or item.
  • noun plural A periodic publication, containing records of discoveries, transactions of societies, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of annal.
  • noun A relation of events in chronological order, each event being recorded under the year in which it happened.
  • noun Historical records; chronicles; history.
  • noun A periodic publication, containing records of discoveries, transactions of societies, etc.; as Annals of Science.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun reports of the work of a society or learned body etc
  • noun a chronological account of events in successive years

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin (librī) annālēs, yearly (books), annals, pl. of annālis, yearly, from annus, year; see at- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French annales, from Latin annales libri ("chronicles"), from annalis ("pertaining to a year"), from annus ("year") + libri, genitive of liber ("book"). Compare with annual.

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