harvest

American  

[hahr-vist] / ˈhɑr vɪst /

noun

harvests plural

1. the gathering of crops.

   Drought has delayed the harvest of corn, peanuts, potatoes, and other vegetables.

2. the season when ripened crops are gathered.

   All through springtime, summer, and harvest, she waited for him.

3. a crop or yield of one growing season.

   Our blackberries are on track to meet or exceed last year's harvest of 30 lbs.

4. a supply of anything gathered at maturity and stored.

   The silos held an abundant harvest of wheat.

5. the taking or removal of animals to be killed for food or other uses.

   Some have called the harvest of nautilus shells for jewelry and ornaments a “horrendous slaughter.”

6. the collection of any resource for future use.

   Rules were established to limit the harvest of forest resources for fuel and building materials.

7. the extraction of an organ or tissue from a body for the purpose of transplant or scientific research.

   The new method could improve the harvest of stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

8. the result or consequence of any act, process, or event.

   The journey yielded a harvest of wonderful memories.

   Synonyms:

   return, product, collection, accumulation

---

verb (used with object)

harvests, present (3rd person singular) harvested, past participle, past harvesting present participle

1. to gather (a crop or the like); reap.

   It’s time to harvest the corn.

2. to gather the crop from.

   The farmer hired a few day laborers to help harvest his fields.

3. to gain, win, or use (a prize, product, or result of any past act, process, etc.).

   The country hopes to harvest dividends from staging a problem-free Olympics next year.

4. to catch, take, or remove (animals), especially for food.

   Fishermen harvested hundreds of salmon from the river.

5. to collect (any resource) for future use.

   to harvest solar energy;

   spammers who harvest email addresses.

6. to extract (an organ or tissue) from a living or dead body, as for transplantation or research.

   to harvest a kidney;

   to harvest embryos.

verb (used without object)

harvests, present (3rd person singular) harvested, past participle, past harvesting present participle

1. to gather a crop; reap.

   We saw whole families out in the fields, harvesting.

harvest British  

/ ˈhɑːvɪst /

noun

1. the gathering of a ripened crop

2. the crop itself or the yield from it in a single growing season

3. the season for gathering crops

4. the product of an effort, action, etc

   a harvest of love

---

verb

1. to gather or reap (a ripened crop) from (the place where it has been growing)

2. (tr) to receive or reap (benefits, consequences, etc)

3. (tr) to remove (an organ) from the body for transplantation

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• harvestability
  noun
• harvesting
  noun
• preharvest
  noun
• reharvest
  verb
• half-harvested
  adjective
• harvestable
  adjective
• harvestless
  adjective
• postharvest
  adjective
• unharvested
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• harvests
  plural

Participles

• harvesting
  present
• harvested
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• harvest
  simple
• harvests
  simple
• have harvested
  perfect
• has harvested
  perfect
• am harvesting
  progressive
• are harvesting
  progressive
• is harvesting
  progressive
• have been harvesting
  perfect progressive
• has been harvesting
  perfect progressive

Past

• harvested
  simple
• had harvested
  perfect
• was harvesting
  progressive
• were harvesting
  progressive
• had been harvesting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will harvest
  simple
• will have harvested
  perfect
• will be harvesting
  progressive
• will have been harvesting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of harvest

First recorded before 950; Middle English; Old English hærfest; cognate with German Herbst “autumn”; akin to Greek karpós “fruit,” Latin carpere “to pluck” ( see carpe diem, carpel)

Explanation

The harvest is the time when you reap what you sow. As a verb, to harvest something means that you pick or gather it. You might harvest your sweet corn late in the summer. As a noun, harvest means the time of year when crops are ripe and ready to be gathered. The picked crop is also called a harvest: a bumper crop is a plentiful harvest, and a poor harvest is when things didn’t grow as well as expected. As a verb, to harvest something is to gather, trap, or cull it. You can harvest a soybean crop, you can harvest beaver pelts, or you can harvest tissues or organs for transplants.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

harvest harvests harvested harvesting

Within five years, the trees were bearing fruit, and Russia became the natural destination for much of the harvest, trucked north across the border.

From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026

He grew up learning how to grow and harvest stone fruit, with the dream of one day owning his own farm.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026

As a demonstration of the technique, the team also created a measurement engine that can harvest energy from the act of making quantum measurements.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 3, 2026

A few times a year, he travels back to his family farm to help plant and harvest a couple of thousand acres of corn and soybeans.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

These are not abstract changes on a map: they could affect harvests, water supplies and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

Yaghi’s Irvine-based company, Atoco, has said it will start taking orders later this year for its technology that harvests water from the air.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

Modern pesticides have helped farmers protect crops and increase yields, but some can also damage the pollinators that make many harvests possible.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 10, 2026

Storage units have been financed by the UN, to allow harvests to be kept and sold when the market improves, and some of the women have received better seeds.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

“You can recapture the harvests the thieves have taken. You can be remembered by the Han people for your dutifulness.”

From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston

It was named after the harvest season observed by indigenous Americans and signalled the time of year that wild strawberries were harvested.

From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026

Coffee is usually harvested during Brazil’s drier winter season.

From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026

The technology sector has long harvested talent from a pipeline it does not adequately fund, then wondered why the pipeline runs short.

From MarketWatch ● May 27, 2026

But once harvested, mangoes continue to ripen quickly, making them highly vulnerable to softening, moisture loss, and spoilage during storage and transport.

From Science Daily ● May 23, 2026

On both sides of the road we passed endless fields of harvested cotton plants.

From "The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child" by Francisco Jiménez

This approach is significantly more efficient and cost-effective than ex vivo therapy, which requires harvesting a patient’s cells, modifying them in a lab, and re-infusing them.

From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026

Although fishing for totoaba was banned decades ago, illegal harvesting continues due to wildlife trafficking networks and persistent overseas demand.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 17, 2026

Amid growing concerns about online surveillance and data harvesting, more people are turning to VPNs.

From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026

This week, Bojan Pancevski reports on Putin’s $26 billion longevity initiative, which encompasses methods as wide-ranging as organ printing, harvesting mini-pigs and exposure to ultralow temperatures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

At his boys’ camp, Kim works day and night in the fields planting and harvesting rice.

From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung

Related Words

• accumulate
• amass
• collect
• gather
• hoard
• mow
• pick
• pluck
• reap
• take in