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In modern English the seasons spring, summer, autumn and winter, don't start with capital letters. However, it hasn't always been thus. For example,

1667 Milton Paradise Lost iii. 43 The..sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose.

or

1719 D. Defoe Life Robinson Crusoe 124 The Seasons of the Year might generally be divided, not into Summer and Winter, as in Europe; but into the Rainy Seasons, and the Dry Seasons.

or

1805 Ann. Rev. 3 584 He was in the Fleet..deserted by his three Summer friends.

or

1832 Encycl. Metrop. XXII. 366/1 Such is its Summer coat, and..we distinguish it by the name Stoat. But in Winter, it becomes white[...]

or

1868 W. Morris Earthly Paradise i. 216 When Summer brings the lily and the rose.

or

1886 Leslie's Monthly Feb. 203/1 Old Sampson don't like the Summer gentry.

When did summer lose its capital?

Simd
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  • My guess is that matters such as capitalisation were not nearly as standardised in those days as they are today. Mass production of the written word has brought more consistency, not only in the way things are spelled, but in fields such as punctuation, capitalisation etc. At least that is my assumption, I am not a professional in the field. – WS2 Mar 18 '16 at 09:19
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    The third example from 1868 might simply be a poetic personification of summer as a character similar to Mother Nature, who brings about the flowering of plants. In the second example (Defoe) it seems he is simply capitalizing every noun. – ghostarbeiter Mar 18 '16 at 09:42
  • @ghostarbeiter Yup. Here's the context: When Summer brings the lily and the rose,/She brings us fear ; her very death she brings – deadrat Mar 18 '16 at 09:44
  • Re: possible duplicate. Half of the quotes I have given are from the 19th century. – Simd Mar 18 '16 at 10:36
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    All your examples but the last have one or more other nouns capitalized as well, so there doesn't seem to have been any special rule for seasons. And any usage of odd noun capitalization in the first few decades of the 19th century is probably just a holdover of the practice of earlier centuries. So the article cited by @Mari-Lou A is germane. – ghostarbeiter Mar 18 '16 at 10:50
  • @ghostarbeiter The penultimate quote ends with "the name Stoat" so this seems a normal capitalization to me. – Simd Mar 18 '16 at 11:26
  • @ghostarbeiter I added some links including to the 1805 quote. It is not yet clear to me why "Fleet" is capitalized when so many other nouns in the same text are not. – Simd Mar 18 '16 at 11:29
  • A "stoat" is an animal, a type of weasel. Its fur is pure white in winter and its winter coat (and the animal itself in this season) is known as "ermine". You seem to be quoting an encyclopedia entry about this animal. – ghostarbeiter Mar 18 '16 at 11:34
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    I found an nice comment online. "The four seasons are not normally written with capital letters. However, if a season is given a human trait (i.e., personified), then it can be given a capital letter." For example, "He was touched by Winter's icy breath." – Simd Mar 18 '16 at 12:09
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    This is a relatively recent thing. My recollection is that all but Autumn (for some reason) had lost their caps by the time I was in 3rd grade or so (ie, mid 1950s), though it hadn't been totally decided, and you did occasionally see caps in (relatively) current books. – Hot Licks Mar 18 '16 at 12:38
  • Seems the difference evolved because unlike the days and months, seasons are imprecise wishy-washy nouns which don't make the grade of being proper nouns, unless as stated above they are given a human trait (i.e., personified)? See http://grammarist.com/style/seasons-capitalization/ – k1eran Mar 18 '16 at 16:42

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