Brewer's: Autumn

He is come to his autumn, i.e. to be hanged, to his “fall.” A pun on the plan of “turning a man off” by dropping the plank on which he stands. The drop is the “leaf,” and autumn is called the “fall,” or “fall of the leaf.”

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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