סתיו (stav) — autumn, fall
Etymology
The Hebrew word סתיו has always existed — but it has not always meant what it means today. Ancient Hebrews, like other peoples of the Levant, had words for summer and winter but no words for the transitional seasons of spring and autumn, because those gradual seasonal changes were not a pronounced feature of the regional climate. The biblical word סתיו described what we would now call winter or the rainy season.
The word appears in one of the most beautiful passages in the Hebrew Bible, Song of Songs 2:11–12: "For behold, the stav has passed, the rain is over and gone. The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of singing has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land." Clearly, this stav is not our autumn — it is the season whose passing brings blossoms and singing birds, i.e., what we would call winter. The cognate words in sister languages confirm this: Aramaic סִתְוָא and Arabic شِتَاء (shita') both mean "winter." The Arabic word for what we call autumn, kharif, has its own disputed etymology — some Arabic lexicographers derive it from "harvesting," others from early or late rains — but it occupied the position in the calendar that autumn now occupies.
The word's meaning was deliberately shifted by schoolteacher and educator Mordechai Ya'avel in 1836, in his natural history textbook Limudei ha-Teva: "The period during which the heat gradually subsides and the cold fills its place shall be called stav." Generations of Jewish children were educated on Ya'avel's book, and the influential poet and editor Y.L. Gordon promoted the new usage further, including in his 1882 Sukkot poem "Shilhei Qayta" (shilhei = "end of," qayta = the Aramaic cognate of "summer"): "Summer and winter — all these are in Your hands. You may rage, and in Elul the stav will come to meet us."
Not everyone welcomed the semantic shift. As late as 1958, when the change was already complete, Moshe Satav — whose surname happens to be the word itself — protested three times in his slim volume Perakim be-Teva u-Velashon against what he considered the "incorrect" use of the word.
The article also discusses the other seasons: spring (אביב, from root א.ב.ב, "blooming," also used for the month of barley-ripening in the Bible); summer (קיץ from a Semitic root related to summer heat, cognate with Aramaic קיטא from which we get קיטנה); and the fact that the Hebrew translation of Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine (late 16th century) already uses all four seasons — but with stav as winter and horef as autumn, the reverse of modern usage.
Key Quotes
"כִּי הִנֵּה הַסְּתָיו עָבָר הַגֶּשֶׁם חָלַף הָלַךְ לוֹ. הַנִּצָּנִים נִרְאוּ בָאָרֶץ" — Song of Songs 2:11–12
"והעת אשר במשך שלו יכלה החום מעט מעט והקור ימלא מקומו יכנה בשם סתיו" — Mordechai Ya'avel, Limudei ha-Teva, 1836
"קַיִץ וָחֹרֶף – בְּיָדְךָ כָּל אֵלֶּה. תִּקְצֹף וּבֶאֱלוּל הַסְּתָו יְקַדְּמֵנוּ" — Y.L. Gordon, "Shilhei Qayta," Sukkot 1882
Timeline
- Biblical era: סתיו used to mean "winter / rainy season" (Song of Songs 2:11)
- Aramaic/Arabic cognates: סתוא (Aramaic, winter), شتاء (Arabic, winter) confirm original meaning
- Late 16th century: Hebrew translation of Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine uses stav = winter, horef = autumn
- 1836: Mordechai Ya'avel redefines stav as "autumn" in his natural history textbook
- 1882: Y.L. Gordon uses stav in the modern "autumn" sense in his Sukkot poem
- 1958: Moshe Satav protests the "incorrect" modern usage in Perakim be-Teva u-Velashon
Related Words
- חורף — winter; in modern Hebrew, the season that stav used to designate
- אביב — spring; from root א.ב.ב (blooming); originally referred to the month of barley ripening
- קיץ — summer; from a Semitic root for summer heat; cognate with Aramaic קיטא
- קיטנה — summer camp; from the Aramaic קיטא (summer)