harvest moon

Noun

harvest moon (plural harvest moons)

1. The first full moon of autumn by a tropical year.
   • A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks.2003, Christopher Paolini, “Discovery”, in Eragon, page 6
2. The full moon nearest the autumn equinox, when the moon rises the latest and lowest in the sky and seems to appear the biggest, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere.
   • Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, (please specify either |part=I or II)
   • Boxer would even come out at nights and work for an hour or two on his own by the light of the harvest moon.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC