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# cropper

«cropper» in Mova's school dictionary: **Come a cropper: to fall over badly, or to fail badly: he…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a cropper, croppers)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (informal, UK, Australia, NZ) Come a cropper: to fall over badly, or to fail badly: he came a cropper on his bike. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#m1)

2) A plant that gives a crop: a good cropper (a plant that produces a lot). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#m2)

3) (US, history) A sharecropper: a farmer who works land and pays the owner with part of the crop. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

Mostly heard in the jokey phrase "come a cropper" in British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand talk, in stories about slips, falls and failures. In gardening, a "heavy cropper" gives lots of fruit. Phrases: come a cropper, a heavy cropper, a good cropper.

### examples

- He raced down the hill and came a cropper at the bottom. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x1)
- (informal) The team came a cropper in the final and lost 5–0. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x2)
- Watch out for ice or you'll come a cropper. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x3)
- This apple tree is a heavy cropper — we picked 200 apples. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x4)
- The horse came a cropper at the last fence. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x5)
- These tomatoes are good croppers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/#x6)

### note

Almost always in "come a cropper" (= fall or fail). It is informal and old-fashioned but still common in the UK and Australia. Not related to "crop top" (a short top).

### In the corpora

- ["Came a cropper" (UK) means failed badly or fell over.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/33-failure-and-mistakes/23/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «cropper» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cropper/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.