释义 |
crop I. \ˈkräp\ noun (-s) Etymology: Middle English, from Old English cropp craw, cluster, head of a plant; akin to Old High German kropf goiter, craw, Old Norse kroppr torso, body, Old English crēopan to creep — more at creep 1. a. now Scotland : the top, head, or highest part originally of an herb, flower, or tree b. : finial c. : the upper part of a whip : the stock or handle of a whip; specifically : a riding whip with a short straight stock and a loop d. : outcrop 2. a. : an enlargement of the gullet of many birds that forms a pouch which serves as a receptacle for the food and for its preliminary maceration b. dialect, of a human : stomach; also : throat c. : an enlargement of the gullet of some animals (as insects) 3. : something that has been cut or trimmed or that is the result of cutting and trimming: as a. : the part of the chine of a quadruped (as a domestic cow) lying immediately behind the withers — usually used in plural; see cow illustration b. dialect : a cut of meat from this region : short ribs or spareribs c. : the portion of tanned hide resulting from cutting in half along backbone and then trimming off the belly 4. a. : an earmark on an animal; especially : one made by a straight cut squarely removing the upper part of the ear b. [crop (II) ] : a close cut of the hair; also : a style of wearing the hair cut short 5. : the end or ends of an ingot, billet, slab, bar, or other semifinished metallic mill product cut off and discarded because of defects 6. 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 maple-sugar crop > < a crop of foals > (2) in turpentine orcharding : the working unit generally equal to 10,000 boxes and usually coming from a tract of timber of some 250 acres comprising about 5000 trees b. : the product or yield of anything formed together < a crop of garnets > < the ice crop > c. : a batch or lot (as of something produced during a particular cycle) : collection < a crop of lies > < a crop of war babies > < it was there the more unscrupulous whaling captains got their bumper crop of hands — H.A.Chippendale > < a bumper crop of best stories — Bennett Cerf > 7. : the total yearly production from a specified area < the local grange reported that the county corn crop had never been better > II. verb (cropped ; cropped ; cropping ; crops) Etymology: Middle English croppen, from crop, n. (top) transitive verb 1. a. : to cut off (as the top or upper or outer parts of a tree or plant) : lop off < crop branches > specifically : to trim especially by the cutting off of grass, leaves, buds, or twigs < crop a hedge > < cropped lawns > b. (1) : to clip off the tops of (the ears) as a means of identifying animals or formerly as a punishment for criminals (2) : to trim (the wattles of a bird) — compare dub c. : to shear (cloth) d. : to cut (the hair) close < these Indians cropped their hair above the eyebrows and along the nape of the neck — Alfred Métraux & Curt Nimuendajú > e. (1) : to trim (as a book) too close to the printed matter (2) : to cut off or mask out unwanted parts of (as a photograph that is to be engraved or an overlarge halftone cut) (3) : to trim down arbitrarily : excise to suit one's purposes < he relied on cropped passages from the Old Testament — Time > 2. a. now dialect Britain : to gather (as flowers) : pluck b. : to gather by or as if by cutting : reap, harvest < a continuous cropping of forest lands — E.S.Mason > < the number of trout cropped each year > 3. : to feed or graze on especially by biting off the tenderer shoots : browse < sheep cropping a meadow > 4. a. : to cause (land) to bear produce : plant, cultivate < after the land has been cropped for about three years it is allowed to revert to bush — Madeline Manoukian > b. : to grow as a crop < potatoes are cropped in the valley > intransitive verb 1. : to feed on grass : graze < it was so quiet that I could hear the sheep cropping — Mary Webb > 2. a. : to yield a crop < the berry bushes were in their first season but cropped well > b. : farm, cultivate < he crops far more heavily than in the North — McGill News > specifically : to farm as a sharecropper < I tried to get hold of Tom … and found he was cropping at a Mr. Bannerman's — Caroline Gordon > 3. a. : to appear at the surface : outcrop < the rocks which crop out on the Allegheny plateau — Journal of Geology > b. : to turn up or appear unexpectedly or casually < problems kept cropping up > < the naïveté that crops out in his work > |