the.com/indian summer
autumn's encore — when summer takes a bow then sneaks back for one more song
means A spell of unusually warm, dry weather that arrives in autumn, after the first frosts have already hinted at winter.
from An 18th-century North American phrase, first recorded in the eastern colonies. Its exact reasoning is genuinely uncertain — the popular stories (that it was the season Native peoples gathered late harvests, or hunted, or that early settlers distrusted the deceptive warmth as 'Indian' meaning false) are all guesses, not documented fact. What's clear is that the term spread from America and eventually crossed back to Britain, where older names like 'St. Luke's summer' and 'St. Martin's summer' had long marked the same gentle reprieve.
- timing
- Warm spell after the season's first frost
- old name
- Once called Saint Martin's summer in Europe
- first recorded
- American term dates to 1770s letters
- haze required
- Classic versions came with smoky, still skies
- southern twist
- Australia and South Africa get autumn versions too