crop

Etymology 1

From Middle English crop, croppe, from Old English crop, cropp, croppa (“the head or top of a plant, a sprout or herb, a bunch or cluster of flowers, an ear of corn, the craw of a bird, a kidney”), from Proto-West Germanic *kropp, from Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“body, trunk, crop”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to warp, bend, crawl”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch krop (“crop”), German Low German Kropp (“a swelling on the neck, the craw, maw”), German Kropf (“the craw, ear of grain, head of lettuce or cabbage”), Swedish kropp (“body, trunk”), Icelandic kroppur (“a hunch on the body”). Related to crap, doublet of group and croup.

noun

1. (agriculture) A plant, especially a cereal, grown to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose.
   The farmer had a nice crop of corn.
2. The natural production for a specific year, particularly of plants.
   It was a good crop of oats that year.
3. (figurative) A group, cluster or collection of things occurring at the same time.
   The decade produced a whole crop of ideas about space travel.
   The university had an exceptional crop of graduates in 1892, including three who went on to win Nobel Prizes.
4. A group of vesicles at the same stage of development in a disease.
   The patient had a crop of bumps indicative of chicken pox.
5. The lashing end of a whip.
6. An entire short whip, especially as used in horse-riding.
7. A rocky outcrop.
8. The act of cropping.
9. A photograph or other image that has been reduced by removing the outer parts.
   This indicates to the engraver that the subject may be cropped to yield the size desired, but it is advisable that the position for the crop also be determined and marked, else some essential feature of the copy may be cut off by arbitrary cropping to get the required size. 1924, Harry Appleton Groesbeck Jr., “Preparation of Copy”, in The Process and Practice of Photo-engraving, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, Indicating Sizes, page 234
10. A short haircut.
    She went from a ponytail to a crop.
    Eton crop
11. (anatomy) A pouch-like part of the alimentary tract of some birds (and some other animals), used to store food before digestion or for regurgitation.
    Coordinate term: gizzard
    A little bird sat on the edge of her nest; Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops; That day she had done her very best, And had filled every one of their little crops. 1871, George MacDonald, “The Early Bird”, in At the Back of the North Wind
    As the wildebeest shrinks, the circle of sated birds lounging in the short grass expands. With bulging crops, the vultures settle their heads atop folded wings and slide their nictitating membranes shut. 2015 December, Elizabeth Royte, “Vultures Are Revolting. Here’s Why We Need to Save Them.”, in National Geographic
12. (architecture) The foliate part of a finial.
13. (archaic or dialect) The head of a flower, especially when picked; an ear of corn; the top branches of a tree.
14. (mining) Tin ore prepared for smelting.
15. (mining) An outcrop of a vein or seam at the surface.
16. An entire oxhide.
17. (slang, in the plural) Marijuana.
    Cops, come and try to snatch my crops / These pigs wanna blow my house down 1993, “Insane in the Brain”, in Black Sunday, performed by Cypress Hill

Etymology 2

From Middle English croppen (“to cut, pluck and eat”), from Old English *croppian. Cognate with Scots crap (“to crop”), Dutch kroppen (“to cram, digest”), Low German kröppen (“to cut, crop, stuff the craw”), German kröpfen (“to crop”), Icelandic kroppa (“to cut, crop, pick”). Literally, to take off the crop (top, head, ear) of a plant. See Etymology 1.

verb

1. (transitive) To remove the top end of something, especially a plant.
2. (transitive) To mow, reap or gather.
3. (transitive) To cut (especially hair or an animal's tail or ears) short.
4. (transitive) To remove the outer parts of a photograph or other image, typically in order to frame the subject better.
   Reduce to six inches wide and crop to eight inches high. 1924, Harry Appleton Groesbeck Jr., “Preparation of Copy”, in The Process and Practice of Photo-engraving, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, Indicating Sizes, page 234
   You'll see that when you enlarge a subject to many times its normal size, and then crop the photo so there is nothing in proportion to be recognized, all resemblance to the original can be hidden. 1944 July, “WHAT ARE: Name These Enlarged Pictures”, in Popular Science, volume 145, number 1, →ISSN, page 168
   Crop the photo for emphasis and composition. 1964, Proctor P. Taylor Jr., “Photographs”, in Preparing Contractor Reports for NASA: Technical Illustrating (NASA Special Publications; 7008), 2nd edition, Scientific and Technical Information Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, published 1967, →OCLC, NASA SP-7008, page 18
5. (intransitive) To yield harvest.
6. (transitive) To cause to bear a crop.
   to crop a field
7. (transitive) To beat with a crop, or riding-whip.
   She cropped the horse into a comfortable canter and enjoyed the familiar rhythm and bounce of the horse's stride. 2013, Mary Hart Perry, Seducing the Princess