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The word autumn comes from the
Old French
word autompne (automne in modern French), and was later
normalized to the original
Latin
word autumnus. There are rare
examples of its use as early as the 14th century, but it
became common by the 16th century.
Before the 16th
century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the
season. However as more people gradually moved from working
the land to living in towns (especially those who could read
and write, the only people whose use of language we now
know), the word harvest lost its reference to the time of
year and came to refer only to the actual activity of
reaping, and fall, as well as autumn, began to replace it as
a reference to the season.
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