crop

American  

[krop] / krɒp /

noun

• crops
  plural

1. the cultivated produce of the ground, while growing or when gathered.

   the wheat crop.

2. the yield of such produce for a particular season.

3. the yield of some other product in a season.

   the crop of diamonds.

4. a supply produced.

5. a collection or group of persons or things appearing or occurring together.

   this year's crop of students.

6. the stock or handle of a whip.

7. Also called riding crop. a short riding whip consisting of a stock without a lash.

8. Also called craw. Zoology.

   1. a pouch in the esophagus of many birds, in which food is held for later digestion or for regurgitation to nestlings.

   2. a chamber or pouch in the foregut of arthropods and annelids for holding and partly crushing food.

9. the act of cropping.

10. a mark produced by clipping the ears, as of cattle.

11. a close-cropped hairstyle.

12. a head of hair so cut.

13. an entire tanned hide of an animal.

14. Mining. an outcrop of a vein or seam.

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verb (used with object)

• crops,
  present (3rd person singular)
• cropped,
  past participle,  past
• cropt,
  past participle,  past (Archaic)
• cropping
  present participle

1. to cut off or remove the head or top of (a plant, grass, etc.).

2. to cut off the ends or a part of.

   to crop the ears of a dog.

3. to cut short.

   cropped t-shirts.

4. to clip the ears, hair, etc., of.

5. Photography. to cut off or mask the unwanted parts of (a print or negative).

6. to cause to bear a crop or crops.

7. to graze off (the tops of plants, grass, etc.).

   The sheep cropped the lawn.

verb (used without object)

• crops,
  present (3rd person singular)
• cropped,
  past participle,  past
• cropt,
  past participle,  past (Archaic)
• cropping
  present participle

1. to bear or yield a crop or crops.

2. to feed by cropping or grazing.

adjective

1. (of women’s casual garments) shorter than is usual.

   a crop top that bares your midriff;

   crop pants that end at mid-calf.

verb phrase

1. crop up to appear, especially suddenly or unexpectedly.

   A new problem cropped up.

2. crop out

   1. Geology, Mining. to rise to the surface of the ground.

      Veins of quartz crop out in the canyon walls.

   2. to become evident or visible; occur.

      A few cases of smallpox still crop out every now and then.

crop British  

/ krɒp /

noun

1. the produce of cultivated plants, esp cereals, vegetables, and fruit

2. 1. the amount of such produce in any particular season

   2. the yield of some other farm produce

      the lamb crop

3. a group of products, thoughts, people, etc, appearing at one time or in one season

   a crop of new publications

4. the stock of a thonged whip

5. short for riding crop

6. 1. a pouchlike expanded part of the oesophagus of birds, in which food is stored or partially digested before passing on to the gizzard

   2. a similar structure in insects, earthworms, and other invertebrates

7. the entire tanned hide of an animal

8. a short cropped hairstyle See also Eton crop

9. a notch in or a piece cut out of the ear of an animal

10. the act of cropping

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verb

1. to cut (hair, grass, etc) very short

2. to cut and collect (mature produce) from the land or plant on which it has been grown

3. to clip part of (the ear or ears) of (an animal), esp as a means of identification

4. (also intr) to cause (land) to bear or (of land) to bear or yield a crop

   the land cropped well

5. (of herbivorous animals) to graze on (grass or similar vegetation)

6. photog to cut off or mask unwanted edges or areas of (a negative or print)

crop Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing crop

• cream of the crop

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Synonym Usage

Crop, harvest, produce, yield refer to the return in food obtained from land at the end of a season of growth. Crop, the term common in agricultural and commercial use, denotes the amount produced at one cutting or for one particular season: the potato crop. Harvest denotes either the time of reaping and gathering, or the gathering, or that which is gathered: the season of harvest; to work in a harvest; a ripe harvest. Produce especially denotes household vegetables: Produce from the fields and gardens was taken to market. Yield emphasizes what is given by the land in return for expenditure of time and labor: There was a heavy yield of grain this year.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cropless
  adjective
• noncrop
  adjective
• uncropped
  adjective
• well-cropped
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• crops
  plural

Participles

• cropping
  present
• cropped
  past
• cropt
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• crop
  simple
• crops
  simple
• have cropped
  perfect
• have cropt
  perfect
• has cropped
  perfect
• has cropt
  perfect
• am cropping
  progressive
• are cropping
  progressive
• is cropping
  progressive
• have been cropping
  perfect progressive
• has been cropping
  perfect progressive

Past

• cropped
  simple
• cropt
  simple
• had cropped
  perfect
• had cropt
  perfect
• was cropping
  progressive
• were cropping
  progressive
• had been cropping
  perfect progressive

Future

• will crop
  simple
• will have cropped
  perfect
• will have cropt
  perfect
• will be cropping
  progressive
• will have been cropping
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of crop

First recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English crop, cropp “sprout, ear of wheat (or other grain), paunch, crown of a tree”; cognate with German Kropf; see croup ²

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Explanation

A crop is a large amount of one kind of fruit or vegetable that's grown on a farm. Your farmer uncle's corn crop might be especially large after a summer with plenty of rain. A major crop in parts of Asia is rice, while the coffee bean crop is important to the economics of several African and South American countries. A different kind of crop is the short whip that some riders use on horses — and when you crop something, you cut it short. You might decide to crop your hair at the beginning of the summer each year. The noun came first, originally defined as "the top of a sprout or herb."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

crop crops cropped cropt cropping

The weather event is expected to severely impact crop production from South East Asia in particular.

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

Because they don’t have brick-and-mortar operations, like banks, they can crop up with bare-bones business infrastructure.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

Think of Bayer and Vylor, which sell novel crop seeds to farmers that can withstand various insecticides and herbicides.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026

Because crops take months to reach harvest, and growing seasons differ by region and by crop, El Niño’s supply impact typically occurs with a lag of about 16 months, according to Ibrahim.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2026

It was, after all, his crop as well as mine that needed cultivating.

From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien

Those ingredients are replacing rice grains as crops have been hit by dry weather in key producing countries in Asia, reducing harvests and driving up prices.

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

Environmental evidence from plant and animal remains in the prehistoric era indicates a farming community cultivating crops such as barley and wheat.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 31, 2026

"Sustainable alternative livelihood requires more than thinking in terms of alternative crops," he said.

From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026

Mohammad said that he is threatened by the authorities and sometimes his crops are destroyed but he will continue.

From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026

This proliferation of corn and other crops such as beans, squash, and potatoes required vast networks of cultural and commercial exchange among the peoples of North, Central, and South America.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

It was cropped and adjusted to improve contrast, and lens artifacts were removed.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026

That still leaves a problem that cropped up time and again over the regular season and again in the NLDS: inconsistency atop the lineup.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

The trouble that has cropped up is a dispute between the managers of Parton’s ongoing business ventures, She’s Alive, and Parton’s nephew, Bryan Seaver.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026

A union boss for factory workers, he was stocky and well-built with closely cropped brown hair and the hands of someone who had spent the bulk of his 40-plus years in manual labor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

A couple of black lines, a tattoo, stretch up from her collar and disappear into her short, cropped hair.

From "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher

In which they gather'd flowers to fill their flasket, And with fine fingers cropt full feateously The tender stalks on high.

From The Golden Treasury Selected from the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language and arranged with Notes by Various

Piereshy, which a mule had cropt from a wild shrub.

From Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees by John Nisbet

Pride has a fall, they say: and I was proud— Proud as a thistle; and a donkey’s cropt The thistle’s prickly pride.

From Krindlesyke by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

This is a beautiful, clean copy, but cropt a little too much in the binding.

From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three by Thomas Frognall Dibdin

It is however but too manifest that this precious volume has been cropt in binding--which is in red morocco.

From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three by Thomas Frognall Dibdin

"When I talk to families, the cost of living keeps cropping up," she says.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

Deutsche Bank recently found the phrase “broad-based” cropping up repeatedly in earnings calls.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

The group's discussions see the same patterns keep cropping up.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

The process got more mechanized through the back half of the American Century—out with the cover cropping, in with the monocrop, packed tight as can be.

From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026

When she was in the saddle, she could ride so fast that there was no chance of gemstones cropping up in her wake.

From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan

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Related Words

• output
• produce
• product
• yield

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