cropper
/ˈkrɒpə
/noun
1A plant which yields a specified crop: the white-fleshed varieties are the heaviest croppers...
- When buying seeds to grow yourself, choose early and late croppers so that you extend the season.
- He also knew that the Inca potato, unlike modern varieties, was not a good cropper.
- It is a good, regular cropper but never produces a particularly heavy crop.
2A machine or person that cuts or trims something.Bolt croppers, a sledge hammer and mobile phones were thrown from a Ford Mondeo at chasing police cars....
- ‘Last Friday, between 1pm and 3pm, two garages were broken into by thieves who used bolt croppers.’
- He said that travellers had used bolt croppers on the chains securing the gate to gain access to the land.
3chiefly US A person who raises a crop, especially as a sharecropper.Census data shows that more croppers were black than white, but economic and agricultural conditions in the Depression caused a great many white farmers to become tenants or croppers....
- I also got the trade of the farmers, the croppers and the hands from the outlying country.
- Their analogy between slavery and sharecropping provides a specialized instance of the objectification of croppers in the book.
Phrases
come a cropper