autumn [LME] We now call the season between summer and winter autumn, a word borrowed in the 14th century via Old French from Latin autumnus. *Harvest, an older word, was the usual name for the season until autumn displaced it in the 16th century. Americans call it *fall, originally a British expression first recorded in 1555 for the season when leaves fall from the trees, which travelled over to the New World with the first colonists.