Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who works land in return for a share of the yield; a sharecropper.
- n. A heavy fall; a tumble.
- n. A disastrous failure; a fiasco.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A breed of pigeons with a large crop. See pouter.
- n. A machine for facing cloth.
- n. A powerful hand-tool for cutting off bolts or iron rods.
- n. A plant which furnishes a crop: qualified by large or small, heavy or light, etc.
- n. One who raises a crop or crops on shares; one who cultivates land for its owner in consideration of part of the crop.
- n. A fall, as from horseback; especially, a fall in which the rider is thrown neck and crop over the horse's head; hence, failure in an undertaking.
- n. A small bed-and-platen printing-press invented by George P. Gordon (1858) of New York, but named from the machinist (H. S. Cropper) who introduced it into Great Britain.
Wiktionary
- n. a fall; see come a cropper
- n. a breed of domestic pigeon with large crop
- n. a person who nurtures and gathers a crop
- n. a variety of plant producing a good harvest
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One that crops.
- n. A variety of pigeon with a large crop; a pouter.
- n. A machine for cropping, as for shearing off bolts or rod iron, or for facing cloth.
- n. A fall on one's head when riding at full speed, as in hunting; hence, a sudden failure or collapse.
WordNet 3.0
- n. small farmers and tenants
Etymologies
- Perhaps from the phrase neck and crop, completely.
Examples
“Thus the cropper was a worker, not an owner; his status was halfway between a kind of serfdom and the autonomy of ownership.”
“Humor likes to explode pretension, pedantry, dignity, pomposity; we get a feeling of joy whenever those who are superior come a cropper, which is increased when we feel that they have no right to their places.”
“But it probably doesn't affect anything even remotely, except to boost the morale of the looney Fascists of Hamas, their Euro-wally supporters, et al. But that is not necessarily bad, it may encourage them to get over-confident, over-step "the mark" and come the proverbial "cropper".”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“The "cropper" is barely a step advanced above the laborer, for he, too, furnishes nothing but labor, while the landlord supplies house, tools, live stock, and seed.”
“There would be no 'cropper' which a man could 'come' so bad as would be his cropper were he to marry Marie Melmotte, and then find that he was not to have a shilling!”
“a well-developed "cropper;" his dromedary had put its foot in a hole, and had fallen with a suddenness generally unknown to the cameline race.”
“It isn't the first 'cropper' I have come; I shouldn't have minded at all, only for my head.”
“Carl Levin's political witch hunt comes a cropper.”
“Subtle play often comes a cropper faced with Route One tactics in these head to heads.”
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“Evans seems to be suggesting that everyone comes a cropper on this at some point or another.”
Lists
‘cropper’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
hernesheir A printing press, a pigeon, a farmer, a fall from a horse. You pick. Nov 21, 2011
kalidas his delusions and the croppers they cost him -- Edmund Wilson
to see their betters come a cropper -- Tyrone Guthrie Jan 2, 2007