Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To cut (grain or pulse) for harvest with a scythe, sickle, or reaper.
- intransitive verb To harvest (a crop).
- intransitive verb To harvest a crop from.
- intransitive verb To obtain as a result of effort.
- intransitive verb To cut or harvest grain or pulse.
- intransitive verb To obtain a return or reward.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A sheaf of grain.
- To cut with a sickle or other implement or machine; cut down and gather: used specifically of cutting grain: as, to
reap wheat or rye. - To cut a crop of grain, or something likened to such a. crop, from; clear by or as if by reaping.
- Figuratively, to gather in by effort of any kind; obtain as a return or recompense; garner as the fruit of what has been done by one's self or others.
- To perform the act or operation of reaping; cut and gather a harvest.
- Figuratively, to gather the fruit of labor or works; receive a return for what has been done.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To cut with a sickle, scythe, or reaping machine, as grain; to gather, as a harvest, by cutting.
- transitive verb To gather; to obtain; to receive as a reward or harvest, or as the fruit of labor or of works; -- in a good or a bad sense.
- transitive verb To clear of a crop by reaping.
- transitive verb rare To deprive of the beard; to shave.
- transitive verb an implement having a hook-shaped blade, used in reaping; a sickle; -- in a specific sense, distinguished from a sickle by a blade keen instead of serrated.
- intransitive verb To perform the act or operation of reaping; to gather a harvest.
- noun Obs. or Prov. Eng. A bundle of grain; a handful of grain laid down by the reaper as it is cut.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
cut with asickle ,scythe , or reapingmachine , as grain; togather , as a harvest, by cutting. - verb To gather; to obtain; to receive as a reward or harvest, or as the fruit of labor or of works -- in a good or a bad sense; as, to reap a benefit from exertions.
- verb computer science Act of a parent process acknowledging that its child process has exited, thereby removing it from the process table. Until the child process is reaped it may be listed in the process table as a zombie or defunct process.
- verb obsolete To deprive of the beard; to shave.
- noun A bundle of grain; a handful of grain laid down by the reaper as it is cut.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb get or derive
- verb gather, as of natural products
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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So where it is said, _Babylon is fallen, is fallen_; and _thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for thee to reap_; and _the time of the dead is come, that they should be judged_; and again, _I saw the dead small and great stand before God_: these sayings relate not to the days of _John_ the Apostle, but to the latter times considered as present in the visions.
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John Isaac Newton 1684
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They will continue to reap from the sick and the dying until we have a fair public option.
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They will continue to reap from the sick and the dying until we have a fair public option.
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Paradoxically, where are the benefits that we were meant to reap from the former grammar schools?
Ironic Ducks Newmania 2007
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Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she did her level best to play off one faction against another, so as to reap from the resultant feud whatever benefit she could.
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Has he himself some master, who would fain reap where he has not sown and gather where he has not strawed, and who has no pity for his servants who strive?
Parables From Nature 1857
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Does the phrase reap what you sew mean anything to you,
WordPress.com News 2009
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The health industry will take the pennies off a dead persons eyes before its blinging dollar signs in the mortician’s eyes. s eyes. o reap from the sick and the dying until we have a fair public option.
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If the benefit we’re supposed to reap is that the jurors will be more focused as a result of being selected, then let them do their own research in their own ways.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Could National Juries Alleviate the Problem of Political Ignorance? 2010
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In harvest they hay-make -- chiefly light work, as raking -- and reap, which is much harder labour; but then, while reaping they work their own time, as it is done by the piece.
The Toilers of the Field Richard Jefferies 1867
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