harvest
- Also har·vest·ing. the gathering of crops.
- the season when ripened crops are gathered.
- a crop or yield of one growing season.See Synonym Study at crop.
- a supply of anything gathered at maturity and stored: a harvest of wheat.
- the result or consequence of any act, process, or event: The journey yielded a harvest of wonderful memories.
- to gather (a crop or the like); reap.
- to gather the crop from: to harvest the fields.
- to gain, win, or use (a prize, product, or result of any past act, process, etc.): She has finally harvested the rewards of her dedication.
- to catch, take, or remove (animals), especially for food: Fishermen harvested hundreds of salmon from the river.
- to collect (any resource) for future use: to harvest solar energy; spammers who harvest email addresses.
- to extract (an organ or tissue) from a living or dead body, as for transplantation or research: to harvest a kidney; to harvest embryos.
- to gather a crop; reap.
Origin of harvest
Synonyms
See more synonyms for harvest on Thesaurus.comExamples from the Web for harvest
Contemporary Examples
These villages used to harvest rubber, cacao, palm oil, and coffee beans.
Their “livelihoods and harvest,” as Brown describes it, were stripped away from them.
Everything in life, from governance to harvest to warfare, was suffused with sacred meaning until the advent of the Enlightenment.
Roberts estimated that close to 95 percent of all wineries have returned to harvest production.
The ancient Maya believed that the underworld of caves was home to gods that controlled rainfall and harvest bounties.
Historical Examples
In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry.
It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground.
Calvert and I have been helping our neighbors to get in the harvest.
Ballads of a BohemianRobert W. Service
Harvest after harvest Shakespeare brought forth of astounding quality.
The Man ShakespeareFrank Harris
He said the men were rebuilding the stockade and getting in the harvest.
The Trail BookMary Austin
harvest
- the gathering of a ripened crop
- the crop itself or the yield from it in a single growing season
- the season for gathering crops
- the product of an effort, action, etca harvest of love
- to gather or reap (a ripened crop) from (the place where it has been growing)
- (tr) to receive or reap (benefits, consequences, etc)
- (tr) mainly US to remove (an organ) from the body for transplantation
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for harvest
n.
Old English hærfest "autumn, period between August and November," from Proto-Germanic *harbitas (cf. Old Saxon hervist, Old Frisian and Dutch herfst, German Herbst "autumn," Old Norse haust "harvest"), from PIE *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest" (cf. Sanskrit krpana- "sword," krpani "shears;" Greek karpos "fruit," karpizomai "make harvest of;" Latin carpere "to cut, divide, pluck;" Lithuanian kerpu "cut;" Middle Irish cerbaim "cut").
The borrowing of autumn and the use of fall in a seasonal sense gradually focused the meaning of harvest to "the time of gathering crops" (mid-13c.), then to the action itself and the product of the action (after c.1300). Figurative use by 1530s. Harvest home (1590s) is the occasion of bringing home the last of the harvest; harvest moon (1706) is that which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox.
v.
c.1400, from harvest (n.). Of wild animals, from 1947; of cells, from 1946. Related: Harvested; harvesting.