秋

秋 (Kangxi radical 115, 禾+4, 9 strokes, cangjie input 竹木火 (HDF), four-corner 2998₀, composition ⿰禾火)

• 鍬, 𤋦, 萩, 篍, 啾

• KangXi: page 850, character 6
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 24940
• Dae Jaweon: page 1273, character 2
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 4, page 2595, character 5
• Unihan data for U+79CB

Unclear. Schuessler (2007) minimally reconstructed OC *tshiu < Proto-Chinese *C-nh(i)u and proposed its cognacy to either:

收 (OC *(n)hiu) "to reap, harvest, gather"; or

*卒 (OC *tsut) "to finish, end, die", as vegetation dies in autumn; additionally in Zuozhuan, this word's referent was winter's dead vegetation.

Historical forms of the character 秋
Shang		Warring States		Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Bronze inscriptions	Oracle bone script	Chu slip and silk script	Qin slip script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

The oracle bone forms and bronze inscriptions show the pictogram (象形) of a cricket or a locust, sometimes with a fire 火 glyph underneath. In its later form, became a Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *sʰɯw) : semantic 禾 (“rice”) + abbreviated phonetic 𤒅 (). Often thought of as an Ideogrammic compound (會意) : 禾 (“grain”) + 火 (“fire”); after harvesting the grain, the fields are burned to kill locusts and their eggs.

秋

1. harvest season

   麥秋／麦秋  ―  màiqiū  ―  harvest season for wheat

2. autumn; fall

   深秋  ―  shēnqiū  ―  late autumn

3. (literary) year

   千秋萬代／千秋万代  ―  qiānqiūwàndài  ―  the ages to come

   一日不見，如隔三秋 [MSC, trad.]
   一日不见，如隔三秋 [MSC, simp.]

   yī rì bù jiàn, rú gé sān qiū [Pinyin]

   a single day apart seems like three years

4. period; time

   多事之秋  ―  duōshìzhīqiū  ―  troubled period

5. autumn crops
6. a surname

   秋瑾  ―  Qiū Jǐn  ―  Qiu Jin (Chinese revolutionary)

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. autumn

• Go-on: しゅ (shu)^{←しゆ (syu, historical)}
• Kan-on: しゅう (shū, Jōyō)^{←しう (siu, historical)}
• Kun: あき (aki, 秋, Jōyō); とき (toki, 秋)

⟨aki₁⟩ → */akʲi/ → /aki/

From Old Japanese.

Likely cognate with 明き (aki, “bright”), 赤 (aka, “red”), 飽きる (akiru, “to become full up”, possibly in reference to the harvest), 空く (aku, “to become empty”), 開く (aku, “to open up”). However, the exact relationship of these terms remains unclear.

• (Tokyo) あ​き [áꜜkì] (Atamadaka – [1])[1]
• IPA^(key): [a̠kʲi]

• Audio

  (file)

• (Kyoto) あき [àkíꜜ][2]

秋(あき) • (aki) 

1. autumn, fall (season)

• 秋季(しゅうき) (shūki)
• 秋期(しゅうき) (shūki)

• 紅葉(こうよう) (kōyō): autumn colors, red leaves

From Middle Chinese 秋 (MC t͡sʰɨu).

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕʰu]
• Phonetic hangul: [추]

Wikisource 秋 (eumhun 가을 추 (ga'eul chu))

1. Hanja form^? of 추 (“autumn; fall”). [affix]

• 국제퇴계학회 대구경북지부 (國際退溪學會 大邱慶北支部) (2007). Digital Hanja Dictionary, 전자사전／電子字典.

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. autumn; fall

• Kun: あち (achi, 秋)

Cognate with Japanese 秋 (aki, “autumn”).

• IPA^(key): [ʔat͡ɕi]

秋 (hiragana あち, rōmaji achi)

1. autumn; fall

• “あち【秋】” in JLect - Japonic Languages and Dialects Database Dictionary, 2019.

秋: Hán Nôm readings: thu

1. chữ Hán form of thu (“fall, autumn”).