Meaning
A spell of unseasonably warm, dry, hazy weather in late autumn, classically in October or November and, by some definitions, only after the first killing frost. Figuratively, a late flowering or pleasant revival after a decline, as in 'the Indian summer of a career' or of a life. Neutral to literary; a staple of sports, arts and obituary journalism for late revivals. Meteorological purists reserve it for a warm spell after the first killing frost, and its timing is regional. Naming debate: the 'Indian' is Native American, not subcontinental - a confusion born in 19th-century Britain - and Wiktionary flags the term as possibly offensive; writers uneasy with it can use neutral wording such as 'late warm spell'. Regional use: North American in origin; now standard in the US, Canada and the British Isles.
Origin
An American coinage, first recorded in J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's American Farmer material: a passage dated January 1778 describes a mild, smoky interval the settlers 'called the Indian Summer' (the essay was published in French around 1788, and The Phrase Finder dates the book 1778). The late-19th-century lexicographer Albert Matthews later hunted the coiner in vain - the earliest reference he found dated to 1851, and he discounted a 1778 English letter as coincidental. Why 'Indian' is unknown. The theories: the calm favoured Native American hunting; the haze rose from prairie fires set by Native Americans (Audubon's journal of 20 November 1820 blamed 'Indians, firing the Prairies'); or, like other old 'Indian' phrases, it meant a false copy of the real thing. Britain borrowed the term in the early 19th century - The Guardian explained it to readers in 1837 - and Raj-era usage bred a false link to the subcontinent. It displaced older names such as Saint Martin's summer and all-hallown summer. The figurative sense of a late revival was established by 1834, when Whittier wrote of 'The Indian Summer of the heart', with De Quincey following in 1855 and Holmes in 1867.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- all-hallown summer
- Michaelmas summer
- Saint Martin's summer
- St. Luke's summer
Usage Examples
- An unexpected Indian summer let us eat lunch outdoors well into November.
- The coach came out of retirement for one last season, an Indian summer that ended with a trophy.
- After the first hard frost, a hazy Indian summer settled over the valley for a week.