Earlier this year I read Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and am currently about half way through The Complete Works of Robert Frost. A good year for reading poetry as it turns out. You can put it down and come back without the catch up required by a story or continuing theory. This could possibly explain why lately my favorite word is autumnal. Such a descriptive vocabulary word. And today I’ve lived up to it with pumpkin ice cream in the freezer. One large and six individual pumpkin pies. Yet, it is the second definition of the noun autumn that grabs my attention most this fall. Maturity as the verge of decline–hmmm… no wonder we avoid it so.
au·tumn (ô
t
m)
1. The season of the year between summer and winter, lasting from the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice and from September to December in the Northern Hemisphere; fall.2. A period of maturity verging on decline.The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. autumnal [ɔːˈtʌmnəl]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
