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Synonyms

cropper

American  
[krop-er] / ˈkrɒp ər /

noun

  1. a person or thing that crops.

  2. a person who raises a crop.

  3. a person who cultivates land for its owner in return for part of the crop; sharecropper.

  4. a plant that furnishes a crop.

  5. a cloth-shearing machine.

idioms

  1. come a cropper,

    1. to fail; be struck by some misfortune.

      His big deal came a cropper.

    2. to fall headlong, especially from a horse.

cropper British  
/ ˈkrɒpə /

noun

  1. a person who cultivates or harvests a crop

    1. a cutting machine for removing the heads from castings and ingots

    2. a guillotine for cutting lengths of bar or strip

  3. a machine for shearing the nap from cloth

  4. a plant or breed of plant that will produce a certain kind of crop under specified conditions

    a poor cropper on light land

  5. (often capital) a variety of domestic pigeon with a puffed-out crop

  6. informal

    1. to fall heavily

    2. to fail completely

"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 cropper

First recorded in 1475–85; crop + -er 1

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.

Reading the first few sentences of your letter, one thing was obvious: You and your sister would come a cropper on the subject of the fair market value of this house.

From MarketWatch • Jan. 19, 2026

And countless analyses have described how much the stock market’s advance owes to the AI-driven gains of the technology megacap names, and how much it will hurt if it comes a cropper.

From Barron's • Oct. 17, 2025

They called themselves “Luddites”, a whimsical reference to a folktale about a young cropper who, when beaten by his master, retaliated by destroying his frame.

From The Guardian • Jun. 22, 2019

As the New York Times demonstrates, even the world's most respected titles can come a cropper.

From BBC • May 9, 2019

"I think I'd better do that part of it, Grandmamma. You might come a cropper."

From "The Witches" by Roald Dahl

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.