Summer vs. Spring — What's the Difference?
Edited by Tayyaba Rehman — By Fiza Rafique — Updated on October 29, 2023
Summer is the warmest season with the longest days, while Spring signifies the end of winter and a transition to summer. Both are distinct seasons with varying temperatures and characteristics.
Difference Between Summer and Spring
Table of Contents
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Key Differences
Summer is recognized as the hottest season of the year, typically characterized by longer daylight hours, increased temperatures, and often, vacations or breaks from school. Spring, in contrast, is a transitional season that bridges the gap between winter's chill and summer's warmth.
During Summer, the days are longest, allowing for more sunlight and typically warmer weather, making it a popular time for outdoor activities, travel, and recreation. Spring, however, sees a gradual increase in daylight and temperature, as plants start to bloom and animals become more active after winter.
In terms of attire, Summer often requires lightweight, breathable clothing due to the hotter temperatures. Spring, being a mix of cool and warm days, usually sees layered outfits, with people shedding heavier winter wear but still needing light jackets or sweaters on cooler days.
Agriculturally, Summer is a time of growth and abundance, where many fruits and vegetables reach their peak ripeness. Spring, on the other hand, is a season of renewal and rebirth, where seeds are sown, flowers bloom, and trees regain their leaves after shedding them in the fall.
While Summer and Spring are both awaited seasons, especially in regions with harsh winters, they offer different experiences. Summer provides warmth and extended daylight, while Spring brings a rejuvenation of nature and a promise of the warmer days ahead.
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Comparison Chart
Temperature
Typically hotter
Transitional temperatures, milder
Daylight Duration
Longer days
Gradually increasing daylight
Typical Attire
Lightweight clothing, swimsuits
Layered outfits, light jackets
Agricultural Significance
Time of growth and abundance
Season of renewal and planting
Nature's State
Matured plants, active wildlife
Blooming flowers, budding trees
Compare with Definitions
Summer
The warmest season of the year.
We went to the beach often during the summer.
Spring
The season between winter and summer.
The flowers start to bloom in the spring.
Summer
Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, falling after spring and before autumn. At or around the summer solstice (about 3 days before Midsummer Day), the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice.
Spring
A period of growth and renewal in nature.
Spring signifies a fresh start for many plants and animals.
Summer
The time between spring and autumn.
Children usually have a break from school in the summer.
Spring
The season known for rain showers and budding trees.
Spring showers bring May flowers.
Summer
A season characterized by long days and short nights.
Summer evenings are perfect for barbecues.
Spring
A transitional time with increasing daylight and warmth.
We started our garden in the spring.
Summer
A season of growth and maturity in nature.
Summer is when we enjoy the juiciest fruits.
Spring
To move upward or forward in a single quick motion or a series of such motions; leap
The goat sprang over the log.
Summer
The warmest season of the year, in the northern hemisphere from June to August and in the southern hemisphere from December to February
Summer holidays
This plant flowers in late summer
The golden summer of her life
A long hot summer
Spring
To move suddenly, especially because of being resilient or moved by a spring
I let the branch spring forward. The door sprang shut.
Summer
A horizontal bearing beam, especially one supporting joists or rafters.
Spring
To start doing something suddenly
The firefighters sprang into action.
Summer
Spend the summer in a particular place
Well over 100 birds summered there in 1976
Spring
To appear or come into being quickly
New businesses are springing up rapidly.
Summer
In the Northern Hemisphere, the usually warmest season of the year, occurring between spring and autumn and constituting June, July, and August. In the Southern Hemisphere, it constitutes December, January, and February.
Spring
To issue or emerge suddenly
A cry sprang from her lips. A thought springs to mind.
Summer
The season extending from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox.
Spring
To arise from a source; develop
Their frustration springs from a misunderstanding.
Summer
A period of fruition, fulfillment, happiness, or beauty.
Spring
(intransitive) To burst forth.
Summer
A year
A girl of 13 summers.
Spring
(of liquids) To gush, to flow suddenly and violently.
The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.
Summer
A heavy horizontal timber that serves as a supporting beam, especially for the floor above.
Spring
To gush, to flow out of the ground.
Summer
A lintel.
Spring
(of light) To appear, to dawn.
Summer
A large, heavy stone usually set on the top of a column or pilaster to support an arch or lintel.
Spring
(of plants) To sprout, to grow,
Summer
To lodge or keep during the summer
Summered the herd in the south meadow.
Spring
(now chiefly botanical) To grow taller or longer.
Summer
To pass the summer
They summered at a beach resort.
Spring
To rise from cover.
Summer
Relating to or occurring in summer
Summer heat.
Summer attire.
Spring
(of landscape) To come dramatically into view.
Summer
Grown during the season of summer
Summer crops.
Spring
(figurative) to arise, to come into existence.
Hope springs eternal.
He hit the gas and the car sprang to life.
Summer
One of four seasons, traditionally the second, marked by the longest and typically hottest days of the year due to the inclination of the Earth and thermal lag. Typically regarded as being from June 21 to September 22 or 23 in parts of the USA, the months of June, July and August in the United Kingdom and the months of December, January and February in the Southern Hemisphere.
The heat of summer
Spring
To move with great speed and energy; to leap, to jump; to dart, to sprint; of people: to rise rapidly from a seat, bed, etc.
Deer spring with their hind legs, using their front hooves to steady themselves.
He sprang to his feet.
A bow, when bent, springs back by its elastic power.
Don't worry. She'll spring back to her cheerful old self in no time.
It was the first thing that sprang to mind.
She sprang to her husband's defense and clocked the protestor.
Summer
Year; used to give the age of a person, usually a young one.
He was barely eighteen summers old.
She had seen not more than twenty summers.
Spring
(usually with from) To be born, descend, or originate from
He sprang from peasant stock.
Summer
Someone with light, pinkish skin that has a blue undertone, light hair and eyes, seen as best suited to certain colors of clothing.
Spring
To descend or originate from.
The Stoics sprang from the Cynics.
Summer
(architecture) A horizontal beam supporting a building.
Spring
(obsolete) To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
Summer
(obsolete) A pack-horse.
Spring
To become known, to spread.
Summer
A person who sums.
Spring
To emit, to spread.
Summer
A machine or algorithm that sums.
Spring
To grow.
Summer
(intransitive) To spend the summer, as in a particular place on holiday.
We like to summer in the Mediterranean.
Spring
(transitive) To cause to burst forth.
Summer
One who sums; one who casts up an account.
Spring
To cause to well up or flow out of the ground.
Summer
A large stone or beam placed horizontally on columns, piers, posts, or the like, serving for various uses. Specifically: (a) The lintel of a door or window. (b) The commencement of a cross vault. (c) A central floor timber, as a girder, or a piece reaching from a wall to a girder. Called also summertree.
Spring
To bring forth.
Summer
The season of the year in which the sun shines most directly upon any region; the warmest period of the year.
Spring
To cause to become known, to tell of.
Summer
To pass the summer; to spend the warm season; as, to summer in Switzerland.
The fowls shall summer upon them.
Spring
To cause to move energetically; (equestrianism) to cause to gallop, to spur.
Summer
To keep or carry through the summer; to feed during the summer; as, to summer stock.
Spring
To cause to rise from cover.
His dogs sprang the grouse and partridges and flushed the woodcock.
Summer
The warmest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox;
They spent a lazy summer at the shore
Spring
To shift quickly from one designated position to another.
Summer
Spend the summer;
We summered in Kashmir
Spring
To breed with, to impregnate.
Summer
A period of hot, usually sunny weather.
The summer heat can sometimes be unbearable.
Spring
(of mechanisms) To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
He sprang the trap.
Spring
To make wet, to moisten.
Spring
To rise suddenly, (of tears) to well up.
The documentary made tears spring to their eyes.
Spring
To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
Spring
To go off.
Spring
To cause to explode, to set off, to detonate.
Spring
To crack.
Spring
To have something crack.
Spring
To cause to crack.
Spring
To surprise by sudden or deft action.
Spring
To come upon and flush out
Spring
To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
Spring
(obsolete) To begin something.
Spring
(obsolete) To produce, provide, or place an item unexpectedly.
Spring
To put bad money into circulation.
Spring
To tell, to share.
Spring
(of news, surprises) To announce unexpectedly, to reveal.
Sorry to spring it on you like this but I've been offered another job.
Spring
To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.
His lieutenants hired a team of miners to help spring him.
Spring
To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
Spring
To build, to form the initial curve of.
They sprung an arch over the lintel.
Spring
To extend, to curve.
The arches spring from the front posts.
Spring
To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
Spring
To raise a vessel's sheer.
Spring
To raise a last's toe.
Spring
(transitive) To pay or spend a certain sum, to cough up.
Spring
To raise an offered price.
Spring
To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
Spring
To equip with springs, especially to equip with a suspension.
Spring
To provide spring or elasticity
Spring
To inspire, to motivate.
Spring
(ambitransitive) To deform owing to excessive pressure, to become warped; to intentionally deform in order to position and then straighten in place.
A piece of timber sometimes springs in seasoning.
He sprang in the slat.
Spring
To reach maturity, to be fully grown.
Spring
To swell with milk or pregnancy.
Spring
To sound, to play.
Spring
(intransitive) To spend the springtime somewhere
Spring
(of animals) to find or get enough food during springtime.
Spring
(countable) An act of springing: a leap, a jump.
Spring
(countable) The season of the year in temperate regions in which plants spring from the ground and into bloom and dormant animals spring to life.
Spring is the time of the year most species reproduce.
You can visit me in the spring, when the weather is bearable.
Spring
(astronomy) The period from the moment of vernal equinox (around March 21 in the Northern Hemisphere) to the moment of the summer solstice (around June 21); the equivalent periods reckoned in other cultures and calendars.
Spring Festival" throughout East Asia because it is reckoned as the beginning of their spring.
Spring
(meteorology) The three months of March, April, and May in the Northern Hemisphere and September, October, and November in the Southern Hemisphere.
I spent my spring holidays in Morocco.
The spring issue will be out next week.
Spring
The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process.
Spring
A period of political liberalization and democratization
Arab Spring
Spring
Someone with ivory or peach skin tone and eyes and hair that are not extremely dark, seen as best suited to certain colors of clothing.
Spring
(countable) Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly
Spring
(geology) A spray or body of water springing from the ground.
This beer was brewed with pure spring water.
Spring
The rising of the sea at high tide.
Spring
(oceanography) nodot=a, the especially high tide shortly after full and new moons.
Neap tide
Spring
A mechanical device made of flexible or coiled material that exerts force and attempts to spring back when bent, compressed, or stretched.
We jumped so hard the bed springs broke.
Spring
(nautical) A line from a vessel's end or side to its anchor cable used to diminish or control its movement.
Spring
(nautical) A line laid out from a vessel's end to the opposite end of an adjacent vessel or mooring to diminish or control its movement.
You should put a couple of springs onto the jetty to stop the boat moving so much.
Spring
(figurative) A race, a lineage.
Spring
(figurative) A youth.
Spring
A shoot, a young tree.
Spring
A grove of trees; a forest.
Spring
An erection of the penis. en
Spring
A crack which has sprung up in a mast, spar, or (rare) a plank or seam.
Spring
(uncountable) Springiness: an attribute or quality of springing, springing up, or springing back, particularly
Spring
Elasticity: the property of a body springing back to its original form after compression, stretching, etc.
The spring of a bow
Spring
Elastic energy, power, or force.
Spring
(countable) The source from which an action or supply of something springs.
Spring
(countable) Something which causes others or another to spring forth or spring into action, particularly
Spring
A cause, a motive, etc.
Spring
(obsolete) A lively piece of music.
Spring
To leap; to bound; to jump.
The mountain stag that springsFrom height to height, and bounds along the plains.
Spring
To issue with speed and violence; to move with activity; to dart; to shoot.
And sudden lightSprung through the vaulted roof.
Spring
To start or rise suddenly, as from a covert.
Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring.
Spring
To fly back; as, a bow, when bent, springs back by its elastic power.
Spring
To bend from a straight direction or plane surface; to become warped; as, a piece of timber, or a plank, sometimes springs in seasoning.
Spring
To shoot up, out, or forth; to come to the light; to begin to appear; to emerge; as a plant from its seed, as streams from their source, and the like; - often followed by up, forth, or out.
Till well nigh the day began to spring.
To satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.
Do not blast my springing hopes.
O, spring to light; auspicious Babe, be born.
Spring
To issue or proceed, as from a parent or ancestor; to result, as from a cause, motive, reason, or principle.
[They found] new hope to springOut of despair, joy, but with fear yet linked.
Spring
To grow; to thrive; to prosper.
What makes all this, but Jupiter the king,At whose command we perish, and we spring?
Spring
To cause to spring up; to start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth, or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.
Spring
To produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly; as, to spring a surprise on someone; to spring a joke.
She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light.
The friends to the cause sprang a new project.
Spring
To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine.
Spring
To crack or split; to bend or strain so as to weaken; as, to spring a mast or a yard.
Spring
To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap operated by a spring; as, to spring a trap.
Spring
To bend by force, as something stiff or strong; to force or put by bending, as a beam into its sockets, and allowing it to straighten when in place; - often with in, out, etc.; as, to spring in a slat or a bar.
Spring
To pass over by leaping; as, to spring a fence.
Spring
To release (a person) from confinement, especially from a prison.
Spring
A leap; a bound; a jump.
The prisoner, with a spring, from prison broke.
Spring
A flying back; the resilience of a body recovering its former state by its elasticity; as, the spring of a bow.
Spring
Elastic power or force.
Heavens! what a spring was in his arm!
Spring
An elastic body of any kind, as steel, India rubber, tough wood, or compressed air, used for various mechanical purposes, as receiving and imparting power, diminishing concussion, regulating motion, measuring weight or other force.
Spring
Any source of supply; especially, the source from which a stream proceeds; an issue of water from the earth; a natural fountain.
Spring
Any active power; that by which action, or motion, is produced or propagated; cause; origin; motive.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to moveThe hero's glory, or the virgin's love.
Spring
That which springs, or is originated, from a source;
Spring
That which causes one to spring; specifically, a lively tune.
Spring
The season of the year when plants begin to vegetate and grow; the vernal season, usually comprehending the months of March, April, and May, in the middle latitudes north of the equator.
Spring
The time of growth and progress; early portion; first stage; as, the spring of life.
O how this spring of love resemblethThe uncertain glory of an April day.
Spring
A crack or fissure in a mast or yard, running obliquely or transversely.
Spring
The season of growth;
The emerging buds were a sure sign of spring
He will hold office until the spring of next year
Spring
A natural flow of ground water
Spring
A metal elastic device that returns to its shape or position when pushed or pulled or pressed;
The spring was broken
Spring
A light springing movement upwards or forwards
Spring
The elasticity of something that can be stretched and returns to its original length
Spring
A point at which water issues forth
Spring
Move forward by leaps and bounds;
The horse bounded across the meadow
The child leapt across the puddle
Can you jump over the fence?
Spring
Develop into a distinctive entity;
Our plans began to take shape
Spring
Spring back; spring away from an impact;
The rubber ball bounced
These particles do not resile but they unite after they collide
Spring
Produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly;
He sprang a new haircut on his wife
Spring
Develop suddenly;
The tire sprang a leak
Spring
Produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly;
He sprang these news on me just as I was leaving
Spring
A season often associated with rebirth and rejuvenation.
Spring is when the entire landscape seems to come alive.
Common Curiosities
Why is spring associated with rebirth?
Spring follows winter and sees a revival of plants and animal activity, symbolizing rebirth and renewal.
Do all countries experience summer at the same time?
No, the Southern Hemisphere experiences summer when the Northern Hemisphere has winter, and vice versa.
When does spring begin?
Spring begins with the vernal equinox, typically around March 20th in the Northern Hemisphere.
Can summer temperatures be harmful?
Extreme summer heat can be dangerous, leading to conditions like heatstroke if precautions aren't taken.
What months typically encompass summer?
Summer usually spans June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere.
Why do people do "spring cleaning"?
Spring cleaning is a tradition of thoroughly cleaning a house in the spring, symbolizing a fresh start.
Why are days longer in the summer?
The Earth's tilt on its axis results in longer daylight hours during the summer months.
Is spring the rainiest season?
While spring is known for its showers, the rainiest season can vary by region.
Is summer always hot?
While summer is typically warmer, temperatures can vary based on region and specific weather patterns.
Is summer the most popular time for vacations?
Yes, many people take vacations during the summer, especially when schools are on break.
What's the significance of "Groundhog Day" in relation to spring?
It's a tradition where a groundhog's behavior is observed to predict the arrival of spring.
What is the "spring equinox"?
It's the moment when the day and night are approximately equal in length, marking the start of spring.
Which season is more humid, summer or spring?
Summer tends to be more humid, but this can vary based on location.
What causes "April showers" in spring?
The warming temperatures and prevailing winds can lead to increased rainfall in spring.
What is "Indian summer"?
It refers to a period of unusually warm weather in the autumn, resembling summer-like conditions.
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Written by
Fiza RafiqueFiza Rafique is a skilled content writer at AskDifference.com, where she meticulously refines and enhances written pieces. Drawing from her vast editorial expertise, Fiza ensures clarity, accuracy, and precision in every article. Passionate about language, she continually seeks to elevate the quality of content for readers worldwide.
Edited by
Tayyaba RehmanTayyaba Rehman is a distinguished writer, currently serving as a primary contributor to askdifference.com. As a researcher in semantics and etymology, Tayyaba's passion for the complexity of languages and their distinctions has found a perfect home on the platform. Tayyaba delves into the intricacies of language, distinguishing between commonly confused words and phrases, thereby providing clarity for readers worldwide.
