DIOSCORINTHIUS dī’ əs kə rĭn’ thĭ əs (LXX Διὸ̀ς Κορινθίος). This word is found just once, in the Apocrypha (2 Macc 11:21) in the dating of a letter which Lysias, deputy of Antiochus Epiphanes and later regent of his successor Antiochus Eupator, wrote to the Jews. The date is given as the twenty-fourth day of Dioscorinthius (in the year 165-164). The name is otherwise unknown. There are several possible explanations. (a) It may mean the month Dios (or Dius) in the Macedonian calendar, equated with the Jewish month Marheshwan in Jos. Antiq. I. iii. 3. The addition of -corinthios remains unexplained. (b) In Lat. MSS of the passage there are VLL, Dioscoridos a name not otherwise known as the name of a month, and Dioscurus the third month of the Cretan year. (c) Another suggestion is that it was an intercalary month such as Babylonians and Jews found it necessary to insert every two or three years, as it was realized that the lunar year fell eleven days short of the solar year (see IDB, I. 486f.).