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

"But I've never seen such a beautiful vintage, both in terms of quantity and quality. It's a five-star harvest," the winemaker said.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

But your robot shopper doesn’t watch TV, and if you’re outsourcing the shopping to it, you are not giving Amazon the same chance to harvest dollars from you as you walk through the digital store.

From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026

Illinois’s harvest includes pumpkins for pie fillings this fall.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026

He grew up on a dairy farm and remembers his father talking about people at harvest time, helping each other out then sharing "a bit of craic and banter".

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

"If word spreads," says the first squirrel, "it could jeopardize our eons-old plan to harvest nuts here on planet Earth."

From "Dog Squad" by Chris Grabenstein

They buy avocado harvests and other crops from farmers, and sell them on to supermarkets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

Should energy stay high through next year, and the El Nino weather pattern hit harvests, growth would likely be significantly weaker, while central banks would respond to higher inflation with bigger rate moves.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

That would have been especially troublesome for a community whose religious festivals were closely connected with agriculture, harvests, first fruits, and the seasonal cycle.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

Intensive farming practices themselves contribute to climate change, and farmland is increasingly being abandoned by producers who cannot make ends meet or survive harvests lost to extreme weather.

From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026

The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual formulas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

The following spring, Georgia’s surveyor-general Henry Yonge planted Bowen’s unfamiliar “Chinese vetches” and harvested three crops in a single season.

From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026

Watch for the spikes in produce, meat and other perishable foods that have to be harvested and hauled on diesel-powered farm equipment and shipped on diesel-powered trucks.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

“Meta harvested kids data. That’s how Meta makes money,” O’Neill said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

"Farmers need to quickly harvest grains from the fields, not to lose the crop. They need to be able to sell the crop they harvested and reinvest money in the next production cycle."

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

Several hold freshly harvested taro, the plants’ leaves a shimmering green and the corms still dripping mud.

From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila

"We started harvesting at the end of July, which is unheard of," said Filippo Mobrici, 59, head of the Barbera d'Asti Consortium.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

“Yes, there are laws,” said Jesus, his face wrinkled from years of harvesting garlic, pruning grape vines and picking blackberries in the sun-baked San Joaquin Valley.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026

This year he's harvesting 3,500kg of the fruit, all of which is sold in the city of Bengalaru.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

Last year, three Chinese nationals who had stayed at his hotel were fined and deported after illegally harvesting protected crabs native to Amami-Oshima.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

Saving precious daylight hours could mean the difference between harvesting the food before the first frost or not, and having enough nourishment for the winter or not.

From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson

Related Words

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