nones

A word from the study of religion for the unaffiliated, here spelled without its capital. It behaves as a plural group noun: the nones, stable nones, nones and evangelicals. Writers often flag it on first use with a gloss such as "no religion," because the same letters also name the Roman calendar day and the monastic office of the ninth hour. In writing about belief and politics, context settles which is meant.

The name is a count: Latin nonae, "ninth days," because the nones fell nine days before the ides when the Romans counted inclusively, both ends included. Dates were reckoned backward from it, so "the third day before the nones of March" is March 5th. It travels in a set with calends and ides, which J. Moxon's Mathematics made Easie (1679) rhymes together, and it is often capitalized as Nones.

A word of the monastic day. The office takes its name from the ninth hour it was set to, and it usually appears without an article: one prays at nones, as at vespers. In Greek monasteries the reader recites Psalms 83, 84 and 85 from the Septuagint at this office. Some writers use the singular none for it.

Here the ninth is an hour, counted from dawn. Southey's Madoc (1805) can write "From noon till nones" because by then the two were separate times. Yet noon itself once named this same hour, now an obsolete synonym. As early as 1709 John Johnson felt he had to explain it: "Nones was what we call three o'clock in the afternoon." The singular none carries the same meaning.