summer
Pluralsummers
Verbsummers, summering, summered
Pluralsummers
Formssummers, summering, summered
- 1The warm season between spring and fall, marked by the year's longest and hottest days, falling in June through August in the north and December through February in the south.
The children spent every summer at their grandmother's farm.
By late summer, the fields had turned golden and dry.
UsageSay in summer or in the summer, but last summer, next summer (not
incorrect: in last summer).Oppositewinter
- 2
- 3The most flourishing, happy, or beautiful period of something; its golden age or prime.
That decade marked the summer of the empire, when its art and trade flourished.
He looks back on his thirties as the summer of his life.
UsageUsually the summer of something: the summer of his life.
Similarprime, heyday, peak, zenith
Oppositewinter
Less common meanings
- 4A year of a person's age, used especially for a young person and chiefly in poetic or playful speech.
A child of twelve summers stood waiting at the gate.
She was but one summer old when her father sailed away.
UsageCounted with a number: twelve summers old, a child of ten summers.
Similaryear
Note
In verse the phrasing is tender. In everyday speech it turns playful, a mock-solemn way to state an age. The usage echoes the ancient root shared with the season itself, which meant 'year' as well as 'summer'.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The season's name has an ancient root with both 'year' and 'summer' meanings; the stated echo is a semantic comparison. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A person with light, pinkish, blue-toned skin, light hair, and light eyes, regarded as best suited to certain cool colors of clothing.
The consultant identified her as a summer and steered her toward lavender and rose.
A summer typically avoids warm oranges in favor of cool pastels.
Note
Seasonal color analysis borrows the season as a label for a type of person. The type is defined by cool, blue-pink undertones; hair that was fair in childhood often darkens with age. The advice that follows from it favors soft, muted, cool colors over warm or high-contrast ones.
- 6A horse used for carrying goods or packs on its back.
- 7A person, machine, or circuit that adds numbers, quantities, or signals together to produce a total.
- 8A horizontal beam that supports the weight of a building above it.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Old English sumor ("summer") became Middle English somer. It goes back through Proto-West Germanic *sumar and Proto-Germanic *sumaraz to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "summer, year." Dutch zomer, German Sommer and Swedish sommar are among its many relatives.
Latin sagma gave Late Latin sagmārius, which appeared in Vulgar Latin as saumārius. From there it passed into Anglo-Norman as summer and into Middle English as somer. The word sumpter is comparable.