Etymograph

English

crop

Crop comes from Old English cropp ‘the head or top of a plant, a sprout or herb,…’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *kruppaz ‘body, trunk, crop’.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*kruppaz1‘body, trunk, crop’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*kropp1reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150cropp1‘the head or top of a plant, a sprout or herb, a bunch or cluster of flowers’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500crop1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1871crop1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English crop
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1871, George MacDonald, The Early Bird: “A little bird sat on the edge of her…”.

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*kruppazWiktionary, English crop‘body, trunk, crop’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*kroppWiktionary, English cropreconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150croppWiktionary, English crop‘the head or top of a plant, a sprout or herb, a bunch or cluster of flowers’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cropWiktionary, English crop
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1871cropWiktionary, English crop. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1871, George MacDonald, The Early Bird: “A little bird sat on the edge of her…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *grewb- ‘to warp, bend, crawl’

cripple, croft, 6 more

through Proto-Germanic *kruppaz ‘body, trunk, crop’

group, mog, croup, 9 more

Another origin of crop

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150*croppianreconstructed
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500croppen‘to cut, pluck and eat’
  3. Englishtodaycrop

Literally, to take off the crop (top, head, ear) of a plant.

Today it means

noun A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “crop”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *kruppaz / crop

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