# Why 2 words for the September to November months, but only 1for the other season

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 23, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964 "2001-04-23T04:22:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mouthbreather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964/1 "2001-04-23T04:22:14Z")

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I’m talking about “fall” and “autumn”.

AFAIK, there are no other words that mean “summer”, “winter”, or “spring”.

Why/How did we get two words for fall/autumn?

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**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2001, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964/2 "2001-04-23T04:37:40Z")

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From [this site](http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/ARTICLES/0150/01643264_A.html), I found the following:

> [@](#):
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> - The seasons are still known by the names that dimly reveal primitive peoples’ feelings about them. Winter is an old Germanic word meaning “time of water”–of rain and snow. Spring refers to the springing forth of living things. The original meanings of summer and autumn are lost. People in the United States, however, generally call autumn by its alternative name, fall, from “fall of the leaf.”\*

Not much, but it’s something…

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2001, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964/3 "2001-04-23T06:08:08Z")

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Lent is another word for Spring, albeit archaic in that sense.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2001, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964/4 "2001-04-23T13:14:28Z")

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The original meaning of summer seems to have been ‘year’. Before the knowledge of calendars, prehistoric Indo-European people counted their age by summers. At least, the proto-Indo-European word \*samos that became summer in English, also became the Sanskrit word _sama_ meaning ‘year’. It might be related to the IE root \*sem- meaning ‘one’ (as a unit of counting years?).

Modern Brits think of “fall” (in the sense of ‘autumn’) as an Americanism, but in fact their ancestors used “fall” in that sense back in Elizabethan times. In many respects, the American use of the language is more conservative than the British.

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**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2001, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-2-words-for-the-september-to-november-months-but-only-1for-the-other-season/62964/5 "2001-04-23T14:17:13Z")

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Also archaic, but does give us the “vernal” equinox:

> [@](#):
>
> _**From [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com):**_  
> vernal; primavera1, from Latin vr, spring (phonologically irregular).