fall of the leaf

English

Noun

fall of the leaf

1. (archaic) The time of the year when deciduous trees shed their leaves in temperate climates; (more generally) autumn.
   • 1566, Thomas Blundeville, chapter 17, in The Fower Chiefyst Offices Belongyng to Horsemanshippe‎^[2], London: William Seres:

     […] I would wyshe you to suffer none of the guelders to take your Coltes in hande onles it be in the sprynge, as in May, or in the beginning of Iune, or els about the fall of the leafe […]

   • 1640, James Shirley, Loves Crueltie‎^[3], London: Andrew Crooke, Act I:

     Hip[polito]. […] I was not so much a foole to marry, till my time were come,
     Cour[tier]. What time?
     Hip[polito]. Why the fall of the leafe, when my Summer is over […]

   • 1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 10, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, p. 107,^[4]

     The rage of suicide comes on regularly, like the moulting-time of birds, at a particular season of the year, which commences at the fall of the leaf.

   • 1837, Charles Dickens, chapter 48, in The Pickwick Papers‎^[5], London: Chapman and Hall, page 519:

     “My uncle’s great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which time he collected debts and took orders in the north: […] ”