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crop (krŏp)
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n.
1.
a. Cultivated plants or agricultural produce, such as grain, vegetables, or fruit, considered as a group: Wheat is a common crop.
b. The total yield of such produce in a particular season or place: an orchard that produced a huge crop of apples last year.
2. A group, quantity, or supply appearing at one time: a crop of new ideas.
3. A short haircut.
4. An earmark on an animal.
5.
a. A short whip used in horseback riding, with a loop serving as a lash.
b. The stock of a whip.
6. Zoology
a. A pouchlike enlargement of a bird's gullet in which food is partially digested or stored for regurgitation to nestlings.
b. A similar enlargement in the digestive tract of annelids and insects.
v. cropped, crop·ping, crops
v.tr.
1.
a. To cut or bite off the tops or ends of: crop a hedge; sheep cropping grass.
b. To cut (hair, for example) very short.
c. To clip (an animal's ears, for example).
d. To trim (a photograph or picture, for example).
2.
a. To harvest: crop salmon.
b. To cause to grow or yield a crop.
v.intr.
1. To feed on growing grasses and herbage.
2. To plant, grow, or yield a crop.
Phrasal Verb:
crop up
To appear unexpectedly or occasionally: "one of the many theories that keep cropping up in his story" (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt).
[Middle English, from Old English cropp, ear of grain.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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