Etymologically
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autumn

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɔːtəm/ (UK); /ˈɔtəm/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English autumpne, borrowed from Old French autompne and later directly borrowed from Latin autumnus, also auctumnus,[2][3][4][5] a word of unknown origin, perhaps Etruscan.[3][2] Etymonline mentions Tucker's suggestion of a root meaning “drying-up season” and notes de Vaan's view that, since no PIE word for autumn can be reconstructed, a foreign origin is conceivable.[3] The modern spelling follows the Latin from the 16th century.[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The season between summer and winter: about 1374 in the OED,[6] about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius, in Barnhart.[2]

Semantic evolution

Hoad notes the word was rare before the 16th century.[4] Harvest was the usual English name for the season until autumn displaced it in the 16th century,[3][7] and Americans use fall, first recorded in Britain in 1555 for the season when leaves fall.[7] Tyndale wrote authum in 1526, apparently going back to the Latin, and Shakespeare has autumne in The Taming of the Shrew (1596).[2] The figurative sense, a season of maturity or of beginning decline, is from 1624.[6] Autumnal is from 1574.[2] Etymonline notes that the Indo-European languages have no common word for autumn; many names mean end of summer or harvest.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1374 – the season.[6]
  • 1526 – authum, in Tyndale.[2]
  • 16th century – displaces harvest as the name of the season.[3][7]
  • 1574 – autumnal.[2]
  • 1624 – a season of maturity or decline.[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The season between summer and winter, from September to November in the northern hemisphere; fall.
  2. A period of maturity verging on decline: the autumn of his life.

Word family

  • autumnal
  • autumnally
  • autumnal equinox
  • fall
  • harvest

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press