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Glite Dictionary
👨‍🌾 A tenant farmer 🌾 To farm for rent 💸 To exploit earnings
sharecrop

sharecrop

1 7.4
A farmer who works someone else's land and gives the owner part of the harvest
  • noun
  • /ˈʃɛrˌkrɒp/
  • Archaic
translation icon : arrendatario
  • Many sharecrop farmers struggled to make a living, often paying their debts with a portion of their produce.

Examples

  • John became a sharecrop farmer after losing his job; he farms the land and splits the crops with the owner.

  • I'm living in a sharecrop with no water in it.

    Academic text (2017)

  • The sharecrop farmers worked diligently in the fields, hoping for a good harvest to pay the landowner.

Synonyms

sharecropper
vssharecrop
  • Archaic
14 8.4

A person who grows crops on someone else's land and gives part of the harvest to the landowner

is the general term without regional emphasis
tenant farmer
vssharecrop
3 3.7

A farmer who rents land from a landowner instead of owning it

pays the owner with a share of the crops rather than paying rent
sharecrop farmer
vssharecrop
  • Archaic
6.8

A farmer who works land owned by someone else and gives the owner part of the crop

focuses on paying the owner with a crop share rather than renting

Compounds

sharecrop farmer
  • Archaic
6.8

A farmer who works land owned by someone else and gives the owner part of the crop

Surface Forms

sharecrop singular
sharecroppers plural
sharecrops plural

Morphology

sharecrop = share + crop (semi-transparent) = share + crop

The components 'share' + 'crop' are clear, but the specific agent meaning 'a person who does this' is an extension (often expressed by 'sharecropper') and may not be immediately obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Sharecrop comes from the two simple words share ('part') and crop ('harvest'), and it named a farmer who worked land owned by someone else and paid the owner with a part of the harvest.