crop

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bbeeton
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crop

Postby bbeeton » Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:11 pm

Several possibilities ...

Noun:
- an agricultural product, either in the field (a corn crop) or after harvest (bring the crop to market)
- a batch of something, usually something produced within a given period (the latest crop of detective novels)
- a part of a bird's digestive tract in which food is stored temporarily
- a small riding whip
- as a helper noun, "crop top", a cut-short garment to cover the upper body
- another helper noun, "crop circles"

Verb:
- to cut short (some dogs have cropped tails), usually straight across (as in "to crop one's hair")
- to plant a crop in a field
- with "up", to appear suddenly

There are probably more, and I'm not at all sure what to do with "come a'cropper".

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Slava
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Re: crop

Postby Slava » Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:17 am

The meanings all seem to be related to the head in some way. A riding crop is a short, tail-less whip; the "head" only. To come a cropper is to get tossed over the head of the horse. Crops as in farming are the useful top parts (heads) of the thing being grown. To crop something is to cut it off at the top.

A bird's crop, while pushing it in my opinion, is the bulge in the throat, like the bulge of the plant about the break the surface of the ground. Or so I gather.

Oddly, what I've seen relates it back to Old High German kropf, and never mentions kopf, which is head now.

I don't think I've ever seen it used as a verb meaning to plant.
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