Summer

How to spell summer

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce summer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does summer mean?

1. nounThe warmest season of the year, falling between spring and autumn.
2. verbTo spend the warm season in a particular place.

Summer in a sentence

• noun

  The children look forward to the long summer holidays.

• verb

  Many wealthy families used to summer on the coast.

• noun

  We booked the cottage for a week in late summer.

• verb

  They prefer to summer in the mountains where it stays cool.

Where does summer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English sumor, the native Anglo-Saxon name for the warmest season of the year. It belongs to a shared Germanic family, with close cousins such as Dutch zomer and German Sommer, and it ultimately traces back to a prehistoric root meaning simply 'the season' or 'half-year'. The same ancient root surfaces in the Sanskrit word sama, meaning a season or year, which shows how far back the idea travels. The spelling settled into its modern shape during the Middle English period, with the doubled m and the plain -er ending reflecting how the word had long been pronounced. Because it is such an old, everyday word, it has stayed remarkably stable, and the only mild trap for a writer is remembering the double m.

How the word is built

• summ- (from Old English sumor: the warm season)
• -er (noun ending absorbed from the original word, not a separate suffix)