Other forms: autumns
Autumn is the season between summer and winter, when the leaves turn yellow and brown and come down. Conkers on the pavement, dark by five, the first morning you can see your own breath.
In Britain it is autumn; in the United States the same season is fall, and both are proper English. It runs from September to November in the north and from March to May in the south. In front of a noun the word stays as it is — autumn leaves, autumn term, autumn colours — while autumnal describes the feel of the season: an autumnal light, an autumnal smell of wet leaves. It works outside the calendar as well: the autumn of a life or a career is the late part, still going but nearer the end. No capital letter unless it opens a sentence.
1nounautumnThe season between summer and winter, when leaves fall and the days shorten.
“The garden looks best in autumn, when the beeches turn.”
synonyms: fall
2nounlaterThe later part of a life or a period, past its best but not over.
“He wrote his finest work in the autumn of his career.”
autumn is a season.
Also accepted in games: fall
Autumn came into English through French — Middle English autumpne, from Old French and Middle French automne — and before that from Latin autumnus, the Roman name for the season. A few of the stranger verb uses come straight from Latin autumnāre. The trail we can follow stops with the Romans; where they found the word is not recorded.
Latin
autumnus
Old French
automne
Middle French
automne
Middle English
autumpne
English, today
autumn
Middle English autumpne, from Middle French automne, from Old French automne, autonne, from Latin autumnus. Some of the verbal senses are from Latin autumnāre.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Time & Calendar, A Man Called Ove, Weather & Seasons
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word