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wintry: characteristic of winter, esp. in feeling or looking very cold and bleak: "a wintry landscape".

summery: belonging to or characteristic of or occurring in summer; "summery weather";

What are the words that mean characteristic of spring and autumn, respectively? For example:

a springly landscape; an autumnly landscape

What about American English, where one uses fall instead of autumn?

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5 Answers

up vote 33 down vote accepted

A great thing about English is its rich lexicon. These are the seasonal adjectives that come to mind:

Incidentally, two of the above also have verb forms: hibernate and estivate.

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We would probably say springlike or vernal (more technical) to refer to spring.

For autumn (fall) we would say autumnal or fall-like.

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Most common case is that people would just use the season name in the adjective sense, e.g. "spring flowers", "summer weather", "fall leaves".

If you do need a single word that evokes the meaning that it is characteristic of the season yet not of the season, then "spring-like" is your best bet. But in common usage, that meaning is established by context, as in "spring flowers in the winter."

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As smackfu pointed out, one can simply use fall or spring as an adjective:

That was beautiful fall weather yesterday.

She's wearing a pretty spring jacket.

That said, I might use fall-like when I'm referring to fall, but it isn't autumn:

In October: That was beautiful fall weather yesterday.

But, after an unseasonably cool day in early August: That was beautiful fall-like weather yesterday.


References: M-W lists fall (3) as an adjective; wordnik lists some example uses of fall-like

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Colloquially, I often use springy. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek, and can reflect the levity of the season, having just emerged from winter:

It's feeling very springy today.

Unfortunately, "fall-y" doesn't really work, unless you're working at a pun.

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