Noun

Singular season

Plural seasons

season (plural seasons)

1. Each of the four divisions of a year: spring, summer, autumn and winter.
2. A part of a year when something particular happens: mating season, rainy season, football season.
3. (obsolete) That which gives relish.

   You lack the season of all natures, sleep. Shakespeare

4. (cricket) the period over which a series of test matches are played
5. (North American) A group of episodes of a television or radio program broadcast in regular intervals with a long break between each group, usually with one year between the beginning of each.

   The third season of Friends aired from 1996 to 1997.

A season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.

Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution. In temperate and polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, variations of which may cause animals to go into hibernation or to migrate, and plants to be dormant.

During May, June and July, the northern hemisphere is exposed to more direct sunlight because the hemisphere faces the sun. The same is true of the southern hemisphere in November, December and January. It is the tilt of the Earth that causes the Sun to be higher in the sky during the summer months which increases the solar flux. However, due to seasonal lag, June, July and August are the hottest months in the northern hemisphere and December, January and February are the hottest months in the southern hemisphere.

In temperate and subpolar regions generally four calendar based seasons are recognized: spring, summer, autumn, winter.

In some tropical and subtropical regions it is more common to speak of the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season versus the dry season, because the amount of precipitation may vary more dramatically than the average temperature. For example, in Nicaragua, the dry season is called Summer (Oct to May) and the rainy season is called Winter (Apr to Nov) even though it is located in the northern hemisphere.

In other tropical areas a three-way division into hot, rainy and cool season is used.

In some parts of the world, special "seasons" are loosely defined based upon important events such as a hurricane season, tornado season or a wildfire season.

Chinese seasons are traditionally based on 24 periods known as solar terms, and begin at the midpoint of solstices and equinoxes.[2]