Autumn refers to traditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves; typically regarded as being from September 24 to December 22 in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and the months of March, April and May in the Southern Hemisphere. It commonly describes a person with relatively dark hair and a warm skin tone, seen as best suited to certain colours in clothing, of or relating to autumn; autumnal, and (by extension) The time period when someone or something is past its prime, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Taken together, these meanings present Autumn as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Autumn therefore works well as a quotation category because it can hold direct statements about the subject, figurative uses that borrow its meaning, and broader reflections that stay anchored to the same central idea. Autumn is not limited to a single rigid definition in ordinary language, and that wider range is part of what makes the category useful for grouping related material without losing the term's main sense.
