Autumn Meaning
/ˈɔːtəm/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounTraditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves, and temperatures and daylight hours decrease; typically regarded as spanning the months of September, October, and November in the Northern Hemisphere, and the months of March, April and May in the Southern Hemisphere.
nounThe time period when someone or something is past its prime.
Sentence Examples
Kyoto is most beautiful in autumn.
In late summer and autumn one can see the leaves change colour.
It looks as if autumn is really here.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
Leaves turn brilliant shades of orange and red during the season of ____ each year.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The leaves change color and fall from the trees in the late ____ season.
Word Origin & History
Inherited from Middle English autumpne, from Middle French automne, from Old French automne, autonne, from Latin autumnus. Some of the verbal senses are from Latin autumnāre.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The Spring, the Sommer, / The childing Autumne, angry Winter change / Their wonted Liueries, […]"
— c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 149, column 1:
"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."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"I left my cell, my pager, and my home phone at the bottom / I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not've got 'em"
— 2000, “Stan”, in The Marshall Mathers LP, performed by Eminem:
"She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn."
— 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Leaves turn brilliant shades of orange and red during the season of ____ each year.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The leaves change color and fall from the trees in the late ____ season.