/ English Dictionary |
AUTUMN
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The season when the leaves fall from the trees
Example:
in the fall of 1973
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("autumn" is a kind of...):
season; time of year (one of the natural periods into which the year is divided by the equinoxes and solstices or atmospheric conditions)
Meronyms (parts of "autumn"):
Indian summer; Saint Martin's summer (a period of unusually warm weather in the autumn)
autumnal equinox; fall equinox; September equinox (September 22)
Derivation:
autumnal (of or characteristic of or occurring in autumn)
Context examples:
He particularly built upon a very happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so: he depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Here is a nut, said he, catching one down from an upper bough, to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
They could go there again with them in the autumn.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Golbasto Momarem Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue, most mighty Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five thousand blustrugs (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; monarch of all monarchs, taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter: his most sublime majesty proposes to the man-mountain, lately arrived at our celestial dominions, the following articles, which, by a solemn oath, he shall be obliged to perform:—
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them, they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor, as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the autumn.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
In the bottle the acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to disperse the fogs of London.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But we were at home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature's annual work.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)