by Kevin Burton
“Every year August burns itself out like too much of a good thing and every year September is there looming,” I wrote in a profile in my college newspaper. “It’s cooling influence is enough to bring both leaves and schoolboys, floating down to earth.”
Autumn begins today in the northern hemisphere. The message is, slow down.
So let’s slow down at least long enough to consider a handful of autumn words from Merriam-Webster dictionary. I find them more interesting than they are useful. What do you think?
1-Autumn – the season between summer and winter; also, a period of maturity or incipient decline
Autumn is more confusing, linguistically speaking, than other seasons. It has had multiple titles (fall is common in the U.S., and it’s also been known as harvest and harvest-time), and the exact dates of the season vary some.
Autumn can be defined as the time extending from the September equinox to the December solstice, or as “the season in the northern hemisphere comprising the months of September, October, and November” (in the southern hemisphere it runs from the March equinox to the June solstice).
And to confuse things a bit more in British use it commonly refers to the months of August through October.
2-Churn Supper – a feast at the end of the hay harvest
The onset of autumn brings to mind for many quite specific, often pleasurable, memories: the sweet tang of the newly-crisp air, the colors of the foliage, the churn suppers…. well, the last of those may not be on people’s minds anymore, but in the 18th and 19th centuries we apparently had less apprehension about the words churn and supper in such proximity to each other.
It may not be the most euphonious way to refer to a meal, but it isn’t any worse than blithemeat (“food prepared for a feast to celebrate the birth of a child”).
3-Beaver Moon – the first full moon of November
It is admittedly quite unlikely that any of our readers have found themselves awake in bed in the wee hours of the morning, quietly wondering ‘is there a word for the first full moon of November?’ But if this has happened, imagine how gratifying it must be to finally discover that such a word exists.
4-Susurrous – full of whispering sounds
Susurrous comes from the Latin susurrus, meaning “a hum” or “a whisper.” It may describe any one of a number of whispering sounds, and isn’t restricted to that of leaves moved by wind. However, in autumnal months it is a lovely word to think on as you come across this sound. The noun (“a whispering sound”) is susurration.
5-Hibernaculum – a shelter occupied during the winter by a dormant animal (such as an insect, snake, bat, or marmot)
Hibernaculum is more of a wintry word than an autumnal one; it comes from the Latin, in which it means “winter residence.” It is also generally used in reference to animals.
However, as the days grow shorter and the temperatures drop, who among us does not find himself wishing for a hibernaculum of our own? The plural is hibernacula.
6-Autumnity – quality or condition characteristic of autumn
The English language has words for “condition characteristic of” applied to each of the four seasons, some of which are more common than others. Wintriness and summeriness are still found in occasional use, while autumnity and vernality now languish in obscurity.
7-Estivo-autumnal – relating to or occurring in the summer and autumn
Estivo-autumnal has, at first glance, the appearance of a word that is both useful and somewhat poetic. What other single word can manage to describe the interstices of these seasons, the shift of late warmth to early chill? You may use this word how you see fit, and perhaps it will find a poetic application in your life, but we should warn you that it has typically been used in reference to a form of malaria.
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