秋

The oldest forms (oracle bone script) depicted a cricket or grasshopper, since these insects chirp in autumn or infest crops during the harvest season.

Over time, the original pictographic form was abandoned. The character was reinterpreted as a compound of:

禾 (grain, rice plant) – semantic element, representing crops;

火 (fire) – semantic element, originally related to slash-and-burn agriculture (burning fields after harvest).

There is also a stage in the character’s evolution where the insect form was misinterpreted: the head was reanalyzed as 禾, the tail as 火, and the body as 龜 (gwi, turtle). Later, the 龜 component was dropped, leaving the current 禾 + 火 form.

Thus, 秋 came to symbolize “autumn,” the harvest season, as well as burning fields after harvest.

Semantic range:

- autumn, fall – the season after summer, associated with harvest.

- harvest time – crops and reaping in autumn.

- by extension: seasonal or cyclical change.

Today it universally means autumn, harvest season, and appears in many seasonal, agricultural, and cultural compounds.

입추 (立秋) – the start of autumn (solar term)

추분 (秋分) – autumn equinox

추석 (秋夕) – Korean Harvest Festival (Chuseok)

추수 (秋收) – autumn harvest

추수감사절 (秋收感謝節) – Thanksgiving

추상 (秋霜) – autumn frost (figurative: severity)

춘추 (春秋) – spring and autumn; also title of Confucius’s chronicle Spring and Autumn Annals

It has several variant forms, including 秌, 𤇫, 𥝛, 𥡄, 𥡌. (Note: in some digital environments, these forms may not render correctly.)