crop
(krŏp)
[Middle English, from Old English cropp, ear of grain.]
noun
- Cultivated plants or agricultural produce, such as grain, vegetables, or fruit, considered as a group: Wheat is a common crop.
- The total yield of such produce in a particular season or place: an orchard that produced a huge crop of apples last year.
- A group, quantity, or supply appearing at one time: a crop of new ideas.
- A short haircut.
- An earmark on an animal.
- A short whip used in horseback riding, with a loop serving as a lash.
- The stock of a whip.
- Zoology
- A pouchlike enlargement of a bird's gullet in which food is partially digested or stored for regurgitation to nestlings.
- A similar enlargement in the digestive tract of annelids and insects.
verb: cropped, crop·ping, crops.
transitive verb
- To cut or bite off the tops or ends of: crop a hedge; sheep cropping grass.
- To cut (hair, for example) very short.
- To clip (an animal's ears, for example).
- To trim (a photograph or picture, for example).
- To harvest: crop salmon.
- To cause to grow or yield a crop.
intransitive verb
- To feed on growing grasses and herbage.
- To plant, grow, or yield a crop.
phrasal verbs
- crop up
- To appear unexpectedly or occasionally: “one of the many theories that keep cropping up in his story” (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt)