crop

Definition

A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose.

Etymology

From Middle English crop, croppe, from Old English crop, cropp, croppa (“the head or top of a plant, a sprout or herb, a bunch or cluster of flowers, an ear of corn, the craw of a bird, a kidney”), from Proto-West Germanic *kropp, from Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“body, trunk, crop”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to warp, bend, crawl”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch krop (“crop”), German Low German Kropp (“a swelling on the neck, the craw, maw”), German Kropf (“the craw, ear of grain, head of lettuce or cabbage”), Swedish kropp (“body, trunk”), Icelandic kroppur (“a hunch on the body”). Related to crap, doublet of group and croup.

Example Sentences

• "The farmer had to decide which crop to grow as his main bet for the coming year. Would it be barley, oats, or something else?"
• "It was a good crop of oats this year. What a nice change after last year's crop!"
• "The decade produced a whole crop of ideas about space travel."