to reap the harvest
1
3.7
- idiom
:
cosechar
- After years of hard work, the team is finally reaping the harvest of their efforts with this successful project.
Examples
-
Where I sowed good grain has grown, and you will reap the harvest, my son." And they separated as night fell.
Academic text (2003) -
Jane, we have sowed all of our lives, and we're now reaping the harvest.
-
They give money and their time and reap the harvest of that.
Blog text (6) -
The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life.
-
He said we couldn't "reap the harvest" until the time was right.
Fiction book (2000) -
Today we reap some of the harvest of what we sowed at the end of a South African famine.
Academic text (1999) -
After spending 20 years of summers out in the yard—planting flowers and vegetables, watering, weeding, and reaping the harvest—
Blog text (21) -
Farmers in the region are reaping the harvest as crops are ready for collection this autumn.
-
If you put in the time and dedication, you will reap the harvest of your labor in due time.
Synonyms
∞
1.4
To get something useful, often by effort, like money or skills
947
1.0
To get respect from others because you behave well
104
3.1
To get rewards from your work or to cut and gather crops like grain
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to gain the results or rewards of one's efforts' is directly and compositionally derived from 'reap' (to gather/obtain) + 'harvest' (the yield or results), so the figurative sense follows naturally from the literal agricultural sense. This agricultural metaphor (effort → harvest) is cross-linguistically common, making the phrase immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Reap the harvest comes from farming: to reap means to cut grain and the harvest is the crop ready to gather, so farmers would gather what they had grown at the end of the season. That's why today it means 'to get the results or rewards of your work'.