Fall

Fall: the Season

In the American Heritage College Dictionary the word "Fall" has a very long and diverse list of meanings. Fall can mean anything from "To drop or come down freely under the influence of gravity" to "A loss of chastity" and many other definitions in between that takes up almost an entire column of a page. 

The etymology of the word is simple: It went from the Old English word feallan, to Middle English where it became fallen. The definition I am most interested in looking at is, "Autumn." The story that I can come up with for this is that in the season of the year known as Autumn, the leaves falling off of the trees is what caused that time of year to also be known as "Fall." 

I have a friend who recently came back from studying abroad in London, who did some  English language study while over there. She informed me that the word "Fall" used to be used in England, but it has since then been phased out of the language and now the term used over there is just "Autumn." Apparently we brought the English language to North America when "Fall" was still being used and we never dropped the term as the English have. 

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