The fall of the leaf; autumn; the time when the leaves drop from the trees.--Todd's Johnson. Webster.
This beautifully picturesque expression, which corresponds so well to its opposite spring, has been said to be peculiar to the United States. Mr. Pickering notices the following remark in Rees's Cyclopedia: "In North America the season in which the fall of the leaf takes place, derives its name from that circumstance, and instead of autumn is universally called the fall."--Art. Deciduous Leaves. It is used, however, in England in the same sense, though autumn is as generally employed there, as fall is in the United States.
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how last fall he raised the weekly bills.--Dryden's Juvenal.
Hash worked the farm, burnt coal in the fall, made sugar in the spring, drank, smoked, &c.--Margarel, p. 13.
TO FALL
To fell, to cut down; as, 'to fall a tree.'--Webster. This use of the word is now common in America, although it has been condemned as a barbarism. It is found in the English dictionaries of Ash, Sheridan, Walker, and Knowles; but many others leave it out. Besides the dictionaries, there are other authorities for the use of this word, sufficient to elevate it above the rank of a barbarism. For a fuller account of it, see Mr. Pickering's Vocabulary.