Library / English Dictionary

SUMMER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The period of finest development, happiness, or beauty

Example:

the golden summer of his life

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("summer" is a kind of...):

time of life (a period of time during which a person is normally in a particular life state)

Domain usage:

figure; figure of speech; image; trope (language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The warmest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox

Example:

they spent a lazy summer at the shore

Synonyms:

summer; summertime

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("summer" is a kind of...):

season; time of year (one of the natural periods into which the year is divided by the equinoxes and solstices or atmospheric conditions)

Meronyms (parts of "summer"):

June 21; midsummer; summer solstice (June 21, when the sun is at its northernmost point)

canicular days; canicule; dog days (the hot period between early July and early September; a period of inactivity)

Derivation:

summer (spend the summer)

summerize (prepare for summer)

summery (belonging to or characteristic of or occurring in summer)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Spend the summer

Example:

We summered in Kashmir

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "summer" is one way to...):

pass; spend (use up a period of time in a specific way)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

summer (the warmest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox)

Credits

 Context examples: 

He has twice lodged at Tavistock in the summer.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was life abroad in it different from the life which had been there throughout the summer.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Another summer will hardly improve it to me.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It was a hard summer for Martin.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Our drawing class breaks up next week, and before the girls separate for the summer, I want to ask them out here for a day.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

When the scientists measured urea in the ocean, they found it to be consistently present year-round, and concentrations tended to be higher than those of ammonium and nitrate in the summer.

(Giant kelp switches diet when key nutrient becomes scarce, National Science Foundation)

Each spring, summer, and fall, trees, weeds, and grasses release tiny pollen grains into the air.

(Hay Fever, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

Their happiness was not decreased by the absence of summer.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It is usually worst in the summer.

(Ozone, Environmental Protection Agency)