harvest
pronunciation
How to pronounce harvest in British English:
UK [ˈhɑːvɪst]
How to pronounce harvest in American English:
US [ˈhɑːrvɪst]
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- Noun:
- the yield from plants in a single growing season
- the consequence of an effort or activity
- the gathering of a ripened crop
- the season for gathering crops
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- Verb:
- gather, as of natural products
- remove from a culture or a living or dead body, as for the purposes of transplantation
Word Origin
- harvest
- harvest: [OE] The idea underlying the word harvest is of ‘plucking, gathering, cropping’ – it comes ultimately from Indo-European *karp-, which also produced Greek karpós ‘fruit, crop, harvest’ (whence English carpel [19]) and Latin carpere ‘pluck’ (source of English carpet, excerpt, and scarce) – but its original meaning in English was ‘time of gathering crops’ rather than ‘act of gathering crops’.Indeed, until as recently as the 18th century it was used as the name for the season now known as autumn (as its German relative herbst still is), and it was not until the 16th century that the present-day senses ‘act of gathering crops’ and ‘crops gathered’ began to develop.=> carpet, excerpt, scarce
- harvest (n.)
- Old English hærfest "autumn," as one of the four seasons, "period between August and November," from Proto-Germanic *harbitas (cognates: Old Saxon hervist, Old Frisian and Dutch herfst, German Herbst "autumn," Old Norse haust "harvest"), from PIE *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest" (cognates: Sanskrit krpana- "sword," krpani "shears;" Greek karpos "fruit," karpizomai "make harvest of;" Latin carpere "to cut, divide, pluck;" Lithuanian kerpu "cut;" Middle Irish cerbaim "cut"). In Old English with only implied reference to the gathering of crops. The borrowing of autumn and the use of fall (n.) in a seasonal sense gradually focused the meaning of harvest to "the time of gathering crops" (mid-13c.), also to the action itself and the product of the action (after c. 1300), which became its main senses from 14c. Figurative use by 1530s. As an adjective from late 14c. Harvest home (1570s) was a festive celebration of the bringing home the last of the harvest; harvest moon (1704) is that which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox.
- harvest (v.)
- c. 1400, from harvest (n.). Of wild animals, by 1946; of cells, from 1946. Related: Harvested; harvesting.
Example
- 1. That was equal to about half the annual harvest .
- 2. I asked him about this year 's harvest .
- 3. What you harvest is determined by what you sow .
- 4. A disastrous harvest in russia is one reason for the surge .
- 5. Consumption skyrocketed three years later , thanks to a global walnut shortage and a record pecan harvest .