It has felt like winter here in New Jersey for weeks although the winter solstice made it official today (December 21). As trees have lost their color and their leaves and then were hit with killing frosts and ice. As we enter winter, I asked myself today why the autumn season is sometimes called "fall." Is it just because leaves fall from trees?
The word autumn is derived from Latin autumnus, with connotations of the passing of the year. After the Greek era, the word continued to be used as the Old French word autompne (automne in modern French) or autumpne in Middle English,[18] and was later normalised to the original Latin.
There are rare examples of its use as early as the 12th century, but by the 16th century, it was in common use. Before the 16th century, "harvest" was the term usually used to refer to the season, as it is common in other West Germanic languages to this day (cf. Dutch herfst, German Herbst and Scots hairst).
A change occurred as the majority of people moved from working the land to living in towns. The harvest itself was removed from their daily life and came to refer more to the time of year rather than the activity of reaping crops.
The alternative word for the season,"fall," also has roots in old Germanic languages. The exact derivation is unclear. Possibilities include the Old English fiæll or feallan and the Old Norse fall. They seem like good origins but these words mean "to fall from a height" and not seasons or times of the year.
The most likely explanation is that the term derived in 16th-century England as a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year".
With the peak of 17th century English emigration to the British colonies in North America, "fall" as a season was popularized though it was gradually becoming nearly obsolete in Britain.
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