otoño

Forms

otoño m (plural otoños)^[1] Old Spanish wrote the word otonno, otono or otoño; learned spellings such as atupno, autumpno and attumpno also occur in medieval texts.^[2][3] The Libro de Alexandre already has the Leonese form outunno, while another manuscript of the poem has the learned atu(m)pno.^[4] An intermediate form autoño is recorded in 1537.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish otonno, inherited from Latin autumnus (“autumn”).^[4][5][6][1] The /w/ of the Latin diphthong /au/ kept the following /t/ from being voiced, as it did in auca (“goose”), which became oca.^[1]

The word survived as a popular form only in Spanish, Portuguese, Romansh and Romanian, according to Corominas.^[4] The same Latin word is Portuguese outono, Galician outono, Asturian otoñu, Romanian toamnă and Italian autunno, while Catalan autumne and French automne are learned forms.^{[7][8][9][10]}

The origin of the Latin word is unclear: de Vaan notes that no Indo-European word for “autumn” can be reconstructed, so that the Etruscan origin proposed by others is conceivable.^[11] Gómez de Silva also takes it, probably, from an Etruscan word for autumn.^[12] Wiktionary compares such an Etruscan word and also lists derivations from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ewǵ- (“cold”) or *h₂sews- (“dry”).^[1] Covarrubias and, still in the 19th century, Echegaray derived it from augeō (“to increase”), because autumn brings in the harvest.^[13][14] Wiktionary allows that auctus (“enlarged, ample”) may have influenced the Latin form.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which taxes a foal otonnizo del otonno passado “born in the autumn just past”.^[3] The sense is already the season between summer and winter, as in Alfonso X's Primera Partida, which places the third of the seasonal fasts de otonno after the feast of the Holy Cross.^[3] Corominas's first record is the Primera Crónica General of about 1275.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The word has been in use at all periods, although in some areas sanmiguelada “Michaelmas season” has replaced it.^[4] Medieval texts counted it among the four seasons and linked it with the bodily humours: inuierno, verano, estio e otoño.^[3] Covarrubias explained it in 1611 as the time of the grape harvest and of gathered fruit, and Autoridades (1737) defined it astronomically as the season that begins at the autumn equinox, when the sun enters Libra.^[13][15]

The Academy's 1817 edition added the sense “second growth of grass or hay that the meadows give in autumn”, and the 1899 edition distinguished the astronomical season from the mild season of September to November in the northern hemisphere.^[16][17] The same agricultural sense lives on in derivatives: Asturian otoñada and toñada name the grass that regrows after the summer mowing.^[4] From such forms Corominas, following Carolina Michaëlis, derives retoñar “to sprout again” and retoño.^[4][18] The figurative sense “time of life nearing old age”, as in el otoño de la vida, was noted by Román in Chile and is now in the DLE.^[19][6]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has otonno and the derivative otonnizo.^[3]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has the Leonese form outunno.^[4]
• c. 1275 – first record in Corominas, in the Primera Crónica General; the Libro del acedrex follows in 1288.^[4][5]
• 1464 – otoñada “the autumn season” appears in the Coplas de Mingo Revulgo.^[4][5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin auctumnus as its equivalent and records the verb otoñar.^[20][4]
• 1537 – the intermediate form autoño is recorded.^[4]
• 1591 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City: hivierno, verano, estío y otoño.^[21]
• 1737 – Autoridades defines it as the season beginning at the autumn equinox.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the sense “second growth of grass”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. autumn, fall: the season between summer and winter, which astronomically begins at the autumn equinox and ends at the winter solstice.^[6][1]
2. The mild season of the year, roughly September to November in the northern hemisphere and March to May in the southern: Este año el otoño ha sido seco y templado.^[6]
3. The second growth of grass or hay that meadows produce in autumn.^[6]
4. (figurative) The stage of life in which a person passes from full maturity towards old age: Escribió sus mejores libros en el otoño de su vida.^[6][22]

Word family

• otoñal
• otoñar
• otoñada
• otoñizo

Related words

• retoño
• Latin autumnus
• Portuguese outono

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. otoño
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 322
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. otoño
6. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. otoño
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 502
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1181
14. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 626
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 65
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 623
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 722
18. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
19. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 568
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 391
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. otoño
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. otoño