Fall Is the Older English Name for Autumn
To fall is to drop. The American name for the season is the older English one, kept after Britain dropped it.
To fall is to drop or descend, and in American English *fall* is the season between summer and winter. The season name is English, not American: *fall of the leaf* was used in sixteenth-century England and shortened to *fall*. Britain then adopted the French-derived *autumn* and let the older word go, while settlers had already carried it across the Atlantic. So the supposedly American word is the one England abandoned.
- To drop. *The vase fell.*
- Autumn (American). *In the fall.*
- A decrease. *A fall in prices.*
- A waterfall. *The falls.*
- Old English — *feallan*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | fall | Falling. |
| Past | fell | Fell. |
| Participle | fallen | Fallen. |
| Noun | fall | A fall. |
| Old English | feallan | To fall. |
- Leaves fell across the path.Verb.
- We visit in the fall.American.
- England used fall first.History.
Words America kept and Britain dropped
- Fall — for autumn, used in England until the 1700s
- Gotten — the older past participle of get
- Trash — an old English word for rubbish
- Mad meaning angry — the older sense
- Faucet — used in England before tap replaced it
Old English *feallan*, to fall, of Germanic origin. The season sense is from *fall of the leaf*, 1500s.
Is fall an American word for autumn?
It is an English one. Fall of the leaf was used in sixteenth-century England, and Britain later replaced it with autumn.
Which other old English words survived in America?
Gotten, trash, mad meaning angry and faucet are all older English usages that Britain later abandoned.