Definition of "season"

season¹

/ˈsiː.zən/

noun
plural seasons
1. Each of the four divisions of a year: spring, summer, autumn (fall) and winter
  Quotations
  we saw, in six days' traveling, the several seasons of the year in their beauty and perfection
  c. 1705, Joseph Addison, Remarks on several parts of Italy, &c. in the years 1701, 1702, 1703
  We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, / But the wine and the song, / like the seasons, have all gone.
  1973, “Seasons in the Sun”, Jaques Brel (original version), Rod McKuen (lyrics), performed by Terry Jacks
2. A part of a year when something particular happens.
  Quotations
  Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
3. A period of the year in which a place is most busy or frequented for business, amusement, etc.
  Quotations
  He seldom was seen in the office himself, but occasionally a paragraph in the paper recorded that his yacht had touched at Mentone and that he had been seen at the Monte Carlo tables, or that he was expected in Leicestershire for the season.
  1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
4. (cricket) The period over which a series of Test matches are played.
5. (obsolete) That which gives relish; seasoning.
  Quotations
  O! she is fallenInto a pit of ink, that the wide seaHath drops too few to wash her clean again,And salt too little which may season giveTo her foul-tainted flesh.
  1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
  You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
  c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iv]
6. (Canada, US, Australia, broadcasting) 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.
7. (archaic) An extended, undefined period of time.
  Quotations
  So it is in a person when a breach hath been made upon his conscience, quiet, perhaps credit, by his lust, in some eruption of actual sin; — carefulness, indignation, desire, fear, revenge are all set on work about it and against it, and lust is quiet for a season, being run down before them; but when the hurry is over and the inquest is past, the thief appears again alive, and is as busy as ever at his work.
  1656, John Owen, The Mortification of Sin
  A season of great doubt fell upon her soul.
  1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
8. (video games) The full set of downloadable content for a game, which can be purchased with a season pass.
9. (video games) A fixed period of time in a massively multiplayer online game in which new content (themes, rules, modes, etc.) becomes available, sometimes replacing earlier content.
verb
third-person singular simple present seasons, present participle seasoning, simple past and past participle seasoned
1. (transitive) To habituate, accustom, or inure (someone or something) to a particular use, purpose, or circumstance.
2. (transitive, by extension) To prepare by drying or hardening, or removal of natural juices.
3. (intransitive) To become mature; to grow fit for use; to become adapted to a climate.
4. (intransitive) To become dry and hard, by the escape of the natural juices, or by being penetrated with other substance.
5. (transitive) To mingle: to moderate, temper, or qualify by admixture.
6. (obsolete) To impregnate (literally or figuratively).
  Quotations
  When the male hath once ſeaſoned the female, he neuer after toucheth her.[When the male hath once seasoned the female, he never after toucheth her.]
  1589, Richard Hakluyt, chapter 22, in The principall navigations, voiages and discoveries of the English nation‎, part 1, London, page 93
  For this prince […] would not ſuffer the Buls to come unto the Kine and ſeaſon them, before they were both foure yeares old.
  1601, Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World‎, book 8, London, translation of Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder, chapter 45, page 224
  If you had seasoned me with that philosophy, which formeth the mind to ratiocination, and insensibly accustoms it to be satisfied with nothing but solid reasons, if you had given me those excellent precepts and doctrines, which raise the foul above the assaults of fortune, and reduce her to an unshakeable and always equal temper, and permit her not to be lifted up b prosperity, nor debased by adversity, if you had taken care to give me the knowledge of what we are, and what are the first principles of things, and had assisted me in forming in my mind a fit idea of the greatness of the universe, and of the admirable order and motion of the parts thereof, if, I say, you had instilled into me this kind of philosophy, I should think myself incomparably more obliged to you than Alexander was to his Aristotle
  1745, A Collection of Voyages and Travels, page 150
  In minds, not seasoned and impregnated with the due apprehension of those ends, that conduce to ease and security, there is usually a tempestuous discontent, that raises unruly ferments; an unkind gale, by whose resistless powers, the port is overreached.
  1763, Edmund Burton, Antient Characters deduced from Classical Remains, page 82

season²

/ˈsiː.zən/

verb
third-person singular simple present seasons, present participle seasoning, simple past and past participle seasoned
1. (transitive) To flavour food with spices, herbs or salt.