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sharecrop

American  
[shair-krop] / ˈʃɛərˌkrɒp /

verb (used with or without object)

sharecropped, sharecropping
  1. to farm as a sharecropper.


sharecrop British  
/ ˈʃɛəˌkrɒp /

verb

  1. to cultivate (farmland) as a sharecropper

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of sharecrop

1865–70, back formation from sharecropper

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“By the time my grandfather, Eddie, took the family back down south to sharecrop, all of those kids were city kids,” he said.

From The New Yorker

The records of the Freedmen’s Bureau contain marriage certificates, labor contracts, and sharecropping agreements; since many former slaveholders ended up contracting with former slaves to sharecrop on their land, this could be a clue to a connection.

From Slate

Beyond the allure of Patton’s music for Pops, Mr. Kot writes, “there was the symbolism of what he represented: a free man who didn’t have to sharecrop to eat, who could come and go as he pleased, making records and playing for people in far-off towns.”

From New York Times

Where I grew up, everyone was either a sharecrop farmer or working in unskilled jobs in the oil industry.

From The Guardian

For the right to sharecrop small plots on a fifty-fifty basis, the campesinos had to till the patr�n's big fields, and even submit to being rented out as labor.

From Time Magazine Archive