cropping
Variant of crop
crop (kräp)
noun
- a saclike enlargement of a bird's gullet or of a part of the digestive tract of earthworms and some insects, in which food is stored before digestion; craw
- any agricultural product, growing or harvested, or collected, as wheat, cotton, fruit, honey, etc.
- the yield of any product in one season or place
- a group or collection appearing together a new crop of students
- the entire tanned hide of an animal
- the handle or butt of a whip
- a stick with a handle at one end and a thong or tab at the other, used to direct a horse in horseback riding
Etymology: < the v.
the act or result of cropping, esp.- hair cut close to the head
- this style of haircut
- an earmark on an animal, made by clipping
Etymology: ME croppe < OE croppa, a cluster, flower, crop of bird, hence kidney, pebble; akin to Frank *kruppa, Ger kropf, a swelling, crop of bird (basic sense “something swelling out or swollen”) < IE *gr-eu-b-, curving out < base *ger-: see cradle
transitive verb cropped, cropping crop′·ping
- to cut off or bite off the tops or ends of sheep crop grass
- to grow or harvest as a crop
- to cause crops to grow on or in
- to cut (hair, etc.) short
- to cut short the ears, hair, etc. of
intransitive verb
- to bear a crop or crops
- ☆ to plant or grow a crop
- to feed by cropping grass, etc.; graze
crop out
or crop up- to appear unexpectedly
- to appear at the surface, as a rock formation at the earth's surface; outcrop
Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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