automne

Forms

automne m (plural automnes)^[1] Old French autonne, autompne and, in Godefroy, amptone;^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Middle French auptonne (1405).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]}

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin autumnus (“autumn”).^{[8][3][7][2][1]} The Latin word is probably of Etruscan origin, though the ancients connected it with augeō (“to increase”), the verb behind augmenter and auteur.^[8] Littré, on that old view, explained it as an old middle participle of that verb, like the god names Vertumnus and Pilumnus, meaning the season that is enriched.^[9]

The word was borrowed in almost all the other Romance languages too; only Romanian toamnă is a popular, inherited form.^[7] Gallo-Romance dialects use various other names, such as après-août, arrière-saison, dernier temps or regain.^[7][1] Compare Spanish otoño, Portuguese outono and Italian autunno.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in 1231, for the season between été and hiver.^[8][3] The name came into Old French fairly late; before it, people said gain, the time of the harvest.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From the idea of harvest, supported by the connection with the verb for “increase”, the word passed to that of decline: it was used of human life in 1405, as in Eustache Deschamps' les biens requeult autompne (“autumn gathers the goods”), and more generally from Voltaire (1735).^[8][9] In alchemy it named the time when the operation in the philosophical egg reached completion.^[9]

The gender long wavered: the word was sometimes feminine in classical French, as in Madame de Sévigné's une jolie automne, and still is at times in literary use.^[10][9]

Timeline

• 1231 – First recorded.^[8][3]
• 1349 – Machaut writes le temps d'autonne.^[5]
• 1405 – The form auptonne and the figurative use for an age of life.^[3][8]
• 1735 – Voltaire uses it more generally for decline.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Autumn, fall: the season between summer and winter, in the northern temperate zone from 22 or 23 September to 21 December.^[2][11]
2. (figurative, literary) The decline of something, and of a person's life the years before old age: l'automne de la vie.^[10][9][2]

Related words

• automnal
• Latin autumnus

Usage notes

The word is masculine today; classical and some literary French also made it feminine.^[10][9] Both /o.tɔn/ and /ɔ.tɔn/ are heard, and the ⟨m⟩ is not pronounced.^[3][2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner
5. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
6. ^ a b Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon
7. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e f g Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
11. ^ Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard