Definition
An archaic spelling variant of "month," appearing in older legal instruments, court records, and statutes. As a unit of legal time measurement, a month historically carried specific meaning depending on context: it could denote a calendar month (the period from a given day in one month to the corresponding day in the next) or, in ecclesiastical and some common law contexts, a lunar month of twenty-eight days. The term itself carries no meaning distinct from "month" — it is purely a scribal and orthographic relic.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Obsolete spelling of "month."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A month. [Obs.]" Attributed to Chaucer.
The gap here is not between common and legal meaning, but between the obsolete spelling and the substantive legal question it conceals. A researcher encountering "moneth" in a historical document need not puzzle over the word itself — but must still resolve which kind of month the instrument intended, a question with real legal consequences for calculating deadlines, notice periods, and limitations.
Common Confusion
Do not conflate the orthographic question (what does "moneth" mean?) with the interpretive question (what does "month" mean in this legal context?). Burrill lists "moneth" only as a form note, immediately pivoting to the substantive entry for related terms. Historical documents using "moneth" are simply using period spelling; the analytical work begins with determining whether the instrument contemplated a calendar month or a lunar month, which varied by jurisdiction, period, and subject matter.
Why It Matters in Research
The practical significance of "moneth" is almost entirely paleographic and indexing-related. Researchers working in pre-modern English legal records — plea rolls, chancery proceedings, ecclesiastical court documents, early colonial records — will encounter this spelling and must recognize it as "month" without hesitation. Failure to do so can cause search misses in full-text databases that do not normalize historical spelling variants.
The deeper research trap is the one hidden inside the word, not the word itself. Once identified as "month," the researcher must determine the operative legal meaning of that month. In early common law, a "month" in legal proceedings often meant a lunar month of twenty-eight days, not a calendar month. This distinction affected computation of terms, return days, and statutory deadlines. By the nineteenth century, most American and English jurisdictions had moved toward the calendar month as the default, but historical instruments must be read against the conventions of their time and place.
Burrill's citation to 3 Leon. 16 is a reference to Leonard's Reports, a collection of Elizabethan-era English cases, which signals that this spelling was encountered in late sixteenth-century legal proceedings. Researchers using Burrill as a bridge to primary sources should treat the "moneth" entry as a pointer to the broader "month" entry and its associated interpretive doctrine.
When searching Law Mind corpus materials, consider that OCR processing of early printed law books may render "moneth" inconsistently. Search both spellings when working with pre-1700 materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the sole source here and treats "moneth" as a form note only, offering no independent doctrinal content. His entry reads: "An old form of month." The citation to 3 Leon. 16 grounds the usage in Elizabethan case law without elaborating. Burrill's entry for MONEY immediately follows, suggesting the dictionary treats "moneth" as a pass-through rather than a headword of substance.
Webster's 1913 confirms the obsolete status and traces the usage to Chaucer, placing the spelling well within the Middle and Early Modern English period. No historical legal dictionary consulted gives "moneth" a meaning that diverges from "month." The term's only interest to legal historians is as evidence of spelling conventions in the documents they are reading.
Jurisdictional Note
The spelling "moneth" appears across English legal materials of the medieval and early modern periods and was carried into early colonial American records. It is not jurisdiction-specific; it is period-specific. Any jurisdiction using English as a legal language before the standardization of spelling in the eighteenth century may produce documents with this form.