French Republican calendar

noun

• a reformed calendar officially introduced by the French Republican government on October 5, 1793.

  The calendar was taken to have started on the equinox of September 22, 1792, the day of the proclamation of the Republic. It had twelve months of thirty days each, with five days of festivals at the year’s end (six in leap years). The names of the months were Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose, Germinal, Floréal, Plairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor. The new calendar was abandoned under the Napoleonic regime, and the Gregorian calendar was formally reinstated on January 1, 1806