crops

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of crop.

   A late frost ruined most of the crops across the region.

   Rotating crops between fields helps keep the soil healthy.

   Note

   One plural covers several unrelated things: fields of wheat or barley, the short whips riders carry, and clusters of disease vesicles at the same stage. In farming talk the singular often does collective duty (the year's crop, a good crop of apples), while the plural counts distinct plantings, as in rotating crops. A rider with two riding crops is using the whip sense, not the harvest one.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of crop.

   The editor crops the image to remove the cluttered background.

   The gardener crops the dead blooms so new ones can grow.

   Note

   The present-tense form usually takes an object: she crops the photo, he crops the hedge, the groom crops a horse's tail. Without an object it turns agricultural and means the land itself yields, as in a field that crops well. The spelling is shared with the plural noun, so the sentence tells you which one you have: the farmer crops, but the crops fail.

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