crop

1 of 2

noun

ˈkräp 

1

: a pouched enlargement of the esophagus of many birds that serves as a receptacle for food and for its preliminary maceration

also : an enlargement of the digestive tract of another animal (such as an insect)

2

a(1)

: a plant or animal or plant or animal product that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence

an apple crop

a crop of wool

(2)

: the total yearly production from a specified area

b

: the product or yield of something formed together

the ice crop

c

: a batch or lot of something produced during a particular cycle

the current crop of films

d

: collection

a crop of lies

3

: the stock or handle of a whip

also : a riding whip with a short straight stock and a loop

4

a

: the part of the chine of a quadruped (such as a domestic cow) lying immediately behind the withers

—usually used in plural see cow illustration

b

: an earmark on an animal

especially : one made by a straight cut squarely removing the upper part of the ear

c

: a close cut of the hair

He has a thick crop of hair.

crop

2 of 2

verb

cropped; cropping

transitive verb

1

a

: to remove the upper or outer parts of

crop a hedge

crop a dog's ears

b

: harvest

crop trout

c

: to cut off short : trim

crop a photograph

2

: to cause (land) to bear a crop

planned to crop another 40 acres

also : to grow as a crop

intransitive verb

1

: to feed by cropping something

2

: to yield or make a crop

3

: to appear unexpectedly or casually

Problems crop up daily.

Synonyms

Noun

• harvest

Verb

• grow
• cultivate
• produce
• harvest

Examples of crop in a Sentence

Noun

Tobacco is their main crop.

They sprayed the crops with a pesticide.

The teachers got ready for a new crop of students.

a new crop of horror movies

Verb

The picture was cropped badly.

We had to crop the image to fit it into the frame.

Her hair was cropped short.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Kentucky’s fertile soil yielded abundant corn crops. —Joseph V Micallef, Forbes.com, 26 June 2025

Ward said the company will buy about $70 million worth of crops annually. —Doug Ross, Chicago Tribune, 24 June 2025

Verb

While many monitors can be rotated 90 degrees to become your vertical companion, not all will crop everything correctly. —Luke Larsen, Wired News, 25 June 2025

In Paris, she was spotted in the black version with straight-leg jeans and a dual-toned coat; in New York, the model strutted around in this exact Light Gold shade, cropped leggings and leather bomber jacket in tow. —Stacia Datskovska, Footwear News, 25 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

Noun

(senses 1-3) Middle English crop, crope, croppe "crop of a bird, portion of an herb above the root, sprig, bud, crown of a tree, harvest of a plant, tip or top of something," going back to Old English crop "crop of a bird, sprout, shoot, bunch or cluster (of fruit, seeds), umbel (also croppa, weak noun, only in sense "bunch, cluster"), going back to Germanic *kruppa- "something rounded, bulge," (whence also Old Saxon kripp "crop of a bird," Middle Dutch crop "gnarl, goiter, gullet, body, corpse, blister, bud," Old High German kropf "protuberance, goiter, crop of a bird," Old Icelandic kroppr "swelling on the body, crop of a bird" [Icelandic & Faroese kroppur "body"]), of expressive origin; (sense 4) derivatives of crop entry 2

Note: The Old English n-stem croppa is matched by Old High German kropfo "crop of a bird, bulbous onion." Old Icelandic krov "slaughtered animal with the entrails removed" points to an original paradigm *kruƀan- : *kruƀn-, with the latter resulting in *kruppa- by loss of the nasal, devoicing, and gemination (Kluge's Law). The early meaning of the etymon and its later semantic bifurcations are difficult to reconstruct with certainty. An original sense "something rounded, bulge, swelling" may have led, on the one hand, to "cavity in a slaughtered animal after the entrails are removed" and hence "body, corpse" (meanings in North Germanic and Middle Dutch), and on the other to "swelling in the throat, crop of a bird, goiter." The sense "sprout, bud" in West Germanic is a further specification of "swelling." The later development in English is not paralleled in the other languages. The sense "sprout, sprig" seems to have been generalized to "structures terminating a plant, as fruit, seeds, umbels" and then, on the one hand, to "upper part, tip or end of an object" (such as the stock of a whip) and, on the other hand, to "harvested fruit of a plant, yield of such harvested products in a season." Compare croup entry 1, group entry 1. See R. Lühr, Expressivität und Lautgesetz im Germanischen, Heidelberg, 1988, p. 235; R. Lühr et al., Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Band 5 [2014], columns 816-18; G. Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Brill, 2013, p. 307.

Verb

Middle English croppen "to prune, trim, cut branches from (a bush or tree), derivative of crop, crope, croppe "sprig, bud, crown of a tree, tip or top of something" — more at crop entry 1

Note: The phrasal verb crop up is dependent on a geological sense of crop, "(of rock strata) to appear at the surface," a coal miners' term in the West Midlands in the seventeenth century, which is apparently a development of the noun sense "tip, end" ("to show itself at the exposed end"). Compare outcrop entry 1.

First Known Use

Noun

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

13th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1a

Phrases Containing crop

• bumper crop
• cash crop
• cover crop
• cream of the crop
• crop circle
• crop duster
• crop-eared
• crop rotation
• crop top
• crop up
• double-crop
• field crop
• root crop
• standing crop

Rhymes for crop

• bop
• chop
• cop
• drop
• flop
• fop
• hop
• knop
• lop
• mop
• op
• plop

Kids Definition

crop

1 of 2 noun

ˈkräp 

1

a

: the handle of a whip

b

: a short riding whip

2

: an enlargement of the gullet of a bird or insect that forms a pouch to receive food and prepare it for digestion

3

a

: a plant or animal or plant or animal product that can be grown and harvested

b

: the product or yield especially of a harvested crop

c

: batch sense 2, lot

a new crop of kindergartners

crop

2 of 2 verb

cropped; cropping

1

a

: to remove the upper or outer parts of

crop a hedge

crop a dog's ears

b

: to cut off short : clip

crop a photograph

2

a

: to cause land to bear a crop

b

: to grow as a crop

crop cotton

3

: to produce or make a crop

the apple trees cropped well

4

: to come or appear when not expected

problems crop up daily

Medical Definition

crop

noun

ˈkräp 

: a pouched enlargement of the gullet of many birds that serves as a receptacle for food and for its preliminary maceration