Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Autumn
Au′tumn
,Noun.
1.
The third season of the year, or the season between summer and winter, often called “the
fall
.” Astronomically, it begins in the northern temperate zone at the autumnal equinox, about September 23, and ends at the winter solstice, about December 23; but in popular language, autumn, in America, comprises September, October, and November. ☞ In England, according to Johnson, autumn popularly comprises August, September, and October. In the southern hemisphere, the autumn corresponds to our spring.
2.
The harvest or fruits of autumn.
Milton.
3.
The time of maturity or decline; latter portion; third stage.
Dr. Preston was now entering into the
autumn
of the duke's favor. Fuller.
Life's
autumn
past, I stand on winter's verge. Wordsworth.
Webster 1828 Edition
Autumn
AU'TUMN
,Noun.
The third season of the year, or the season between summer and winter. Astronomically, it begins at the equinox, when the sun enters libra, and ends at the winter solstice; but in popular language autumn comprises September, October and November.
The golden pomp of autumn.
Definition 2024
Autumn
autumn
autumn
See also: Autumn
English
Noun
autumn (plural autumns)
Autumn in the United States
- Traditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves; typically regarded as being from September 24 to December 22 in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and the months of March, April and May in the Southern Hemisphere.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
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- (by extension) The time period when someone or something is past its prime.
- 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House:
- She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn.
- 2014, Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel & Lubomír Batka, The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther's Theology, ISBN 0191667471:
- It has been portrayed as the well-intended yet wrongly directed reaction to latter-day scholasticism, or as the harvest of medieval theology in its autumn years, as a revolution that is theological, political, economic, cultural—or all of the above.
- (Can we date this quote?), Berch Berberoglu, The Global Capitalist Crisis and Its Aftermath, ISBN 1472417275:
- Unlike the decline of British hegemony, in the current world-system no military or economic contender has emerged to replace US hegemony. Even though the US SCA has entered its autumn with the Vietname War and the economic crisis of the mid-1970s, there has been no legitimate hegemonic contender capable of instituting a new global regime to resolve both social and economic contradictions of global capitalism.
- 2014, May Sarton, At Seventy: A Journal, ISBN 1497685443:
- The autumn of life is also a matter of saying farewell, but the strange thing is that I do not feel it is autumn.
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Usage notes
- Note that season names are usually spelled in all lowercase letters in English. This is contrast to the days of the week and months of the year, which are always spelled with a capitalized first letter, for example Thursday or September.
Synonyms
- (season): (US, Canada) fall, (UK dialect) harvest, (UK dialect) back end.
- (time when past prime): decline.
Derived terms
Terms derived from autumn
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Related terms
Related terms
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Translations
season
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Adjective
autumn (not comparable)
- Of or relating to autumn; autumnal
- autumn leaves
- 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:
- Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers.
Translations
of or relating to autumn
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See also
| Seasons in English · seasons (layout · text) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| spring | summer | fall, autumn | winter |