Afterlithe

An unexistant word reconstructed from OE Æftera Líþa 'after lithe'

The seventh month of the Shire Calendar, following the midsummer feastdays of Lithe, and roughly equivalent to July (25 June to 24 July). In Bree it was called Mede.

See also Forelithe?

Annotations and Comments

Jim Allan in An Introduction to Elvish (on p. 227) suggests that "The word Líþa probably originally meant moon. It would seem to refer, in this case, to either the first new moon before or after the solstice."

OED has Old English lithe 'gentle, meek, mellow' of Germanic origin; related to German lind... and Clark Hall's Anglo-Saxon dictionary has Líða as a month's name and liðe 'gentle, soft, mild'[1].