the silly season
Preserved but no longer current.
An obsolescent journalistic expression for the part of the year when Parliament and the Law Courts are not sitting (about August and September), when, through lack of news, the papers had to fill their columns with trivial items — such as news of giant gooseberries and sea serpents — and long correspondence on subjects of evanescent (if any) interest.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “the silly season” mean?
An obsolescent journalistic expression for the part of the year when Parliament and the Law Courts are not sitting (about August and September), when, through lack of news, the papers had to fill their columns with trivial items — such as news of giant gooseberries and sea serpents — and long correspondence on subjects of evanescent (if any) interest.
Is “the silly season” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.