11 Best Fall Metaphors and Similes (aka Autumn)

Some of my favorite fall metaphors include:

• Fall is an old love affair.
• Autumn is a melancholy song.
• Fall is an orange blanket.

You could also create seasonal themed similes, such as:

• Fall is like the world going to bed.
• Autumn is like a sad goodbye.

Below is a full list of metaphors and similes for you to consider (with explanations for each!)

A List of Fall Metaphors

1. Autumn is a Melancholy Song

We will often associate Autumn with a ‘winding down’ of good times. With shortening days, people begin to retreat inside and settle in for a long, cold winter.

If Autumn were a song, you could imagine it being a sad, slow, and reflective one. It might lament the passing of good times or be nostalgic for those good times, wishing for them to come around again before too long.

Read More: Spring Metaphors

2. Fall is an Old Love Affair

In the summer we think of “summer loving”. This is young, passionate love. But by the time Fall comes along, the love affair loses its initial passion and becomes something different. It might be a more comfortable love, where you cuddle into one another and watch movies as the days get shorter and colder.

3. Autumn is a Sunset

If we were to compare seasons to a single day, Winter would be night (because it’s colder and darker), Spring would be the sunrise (the weather is warming up), Summer would be the middle of the day (hottest time of the year), and autumn would be the sunset.

Just like the end of a day, you notice during fall that the weather is getting cooler and you’re headed toward a period of darker and colder conditions. Nature is winding down and some animals like bears are literally getting ready to go to sleep until summer comes around.

Read More: Winter Metaphors

4. A Sunny Fall Day is the Encore to the Summer

Sometimes there’s a beautiful sunny day that feels like the height of the summer … but it occurs in the middle of Autumn. It’s like the world has given you just one more glorious day before the world turns cold.

You might call these beautiful orange days an “encore”.

An encore is usually an additional performance after a concert has ended. If the attendees liked the show, they will call out “encore, encore!” to insist that the musicians come out for one more song.

So, to apply this metaphor, it’s like we’ve asked the world for one more lovely day after summer has already ended, and the world has obliged!

5. Autumn is a Playground

As a child I loved the falling leaves at this time of year. It felt like a playground because I could run through all of the fallen leaves, kick them up, and hear them crunch underfoot. You could play in amongst the shedding trees, and the sun wasn’t so hot that I was uncomfortable, so I could play all day long in very pleasant weather.

Read More: Summer Metaphors

6. Fall is an Orange Blanket

If you look out over an Autumn landscape you will probably see a range of firey colors – from soft yellows through oranges and dark reds. But by far the strongest color is orange.

So, if you were a writer tying to describe a Fall landscape using figurative language, you might describe it as “an orange blanket stretching out over the rolling hills”. Here, you can hopefully get an image in your mind of a mid-fall scene where there are countless orange leaves littered over the ground.

7. The Autumn Years of my Life

If you were to describe the ‘Autumn years of your life’, which years do you think they would be? To me, I would consider this the older years, perhaps my 70s and 80s. It’s a time when you know that you have lived most of your life and things are winding down. But they’re also hopefully happy years where you can play with your grandchildren and enjoy a carefree lifestyle in retirement.

A List of Fall Similes

Similes usually use explicit comparison by using phrases including: like and as much as.

8. Fall is like the World Going to Bed

To say fall is like the world going to bed is to imagine the world as a person. Autumn is that time when it gets itself settled down for a nice long rest. It’s cooling down, the animals are starting to think about going into hibernation, and the trees stop growing quite as much. It’s a time for the world to start resting and recovering for a few months, just like we rest and recover overnight as we go to sleep.

9. Fall Weather is like living with an Indecisive God

This metaphor invokes the idea that Fall weather is very unpredictable. It can be very rainy but also have beautiful warm days. An early dusting of snow might come mid-Autumn, followed the week later by what feels like beautiful spring days.

So, with this unpredictability, you could imagine there’s a God up above controlling the weather and being very indecisive about it. He doesn’t want to know if he wants the weather to be hot, cold, rainy, stormy, or perfectly sunny.

10. Animals in Fall are like Kids raiding the Fridge

This simile makes us think of all those animals about to head into hibernation. From squirrels to bears, you can imagine them running around looking for those last few bits of food to eat before they lay down for the winter. The last thing they want to do is go hunting in the cold!

Their actions might remind you of growing children who are constantly ducking into the fridge for food. They have insatiable appetites and hoard anything they can find.

11. Fall is like a Sad Goodbye

In Fall, we have to accept that the good times of Summer are behind and Winter is ahead of us. We could think of it as a kind of goodbye. We might even be literally saying good to Summer friends and Summer ‘flings’. Or we might just figuratively be saying a nostalgic goodbye to those happy times and accepting that we need to prepare for a cold winter ahead.

Conclusion

The above fall metaphors and similes are not the only ones, I’m sure. But they offer a good start to help you think about ways to use figurative language to talk about the seasons. If none of these ones are right for you, you can make up your own. Simply consider some things that are like Fall in your mind and connect them together using an analogy. Simple use phrases including ‘like’ and ‘as much as’ to create similes, or, say something is something else to create a metaphor.