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In the northern hemisphere, the start of autumn is generally considered to be around September, and in the southern hemisphere, its beginning is considered to be around March. There exist, however, different definitions of autumn, some of which are based on the months of the year while others are based on the equinox and solstice. During autumn, deciduous trees shed their leaves. Leaves change to a yellowish, reddish or brownish hue before falling. Such coloured leaves have come to be colloquially called "fall foliage" in North America. In temperate zones, autumn is the season during which most crops are harvested. It is also the season during which days get shorter and cooler and the nights get longer.
DefinitionsAstronomically, some Western countries consider autumn to begin with the autumnal equinox (around September 23 in the northern hemisphere and March 20 in the southern hemisphere), and end with the winter solstice (around December 21 in the northern hemisphere and June 21 in the southern hemisphere). Such conventions are by no means universal, however. In Chinese astronomy, for example, the autumnal equinox marks the middle of autumn, which is deemed to begin around the time of Liqiu (around August 7). Other definitions are based on counting entire months. Meteorologists, for example, count March, April and May in the southern hemisphere, and September, October, and November in the northern hemisphere as autumn, while in the Irish Calendar, which still follows the Celtic cycle, autumn is counted as the whole months of August, September and October. Although the days begin to shorten after the summer solstice, it is usually in September (northern hemisphere) or March (southern hemisphere) when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier.
EtymologyThe word autumn comes from the Old French word autompne (automne in modern French), and was later normalized to the original Latin word autumnus. There are rare examples of its use as early as the 14th century, but it became common by the 16th century, around the same time as fall, and the two words appear to have been used interchangeably. Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the season. However as more people gradually moved from working the land to living in towns (especially those who could read and write, the only people whose use of language we now know), the word harvest lost its reference to the time of year and came to refer only to the actual activity of reaping, and fall and autumn began to replace it as a reference to the season.
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