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Glite Dictionary
to come a cropper

to come a cropper

1 9.8
To fail badly or have a sudden problem
  • idiom
  • UK
translation icon : fracasar
  • Despite its good intentions, the project came a cropper when funding was cut unexpectedly.

Examples

  • Irene, who showed me, will help me with patterns when I come a cropper with what they mean.

    Blog text (10)

  • And the number of times I've come a cropper on WhatsApp, text e-mail because I've typed something and I'm basically saying this, this sounds OK, Jake.

  • He'll come a cropper sooner or later.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • The last little corporal who tried came a cropper.

    Battle of Britain (1969)

  • In short, many of the president's most fanciful initiatives have come a cropper.

    Blog text (8)

  • Just in case you were wondering, skiers do come a cropper on chair lifts too...

    Blog text (34)

  • Mort's best-laid plans may, and often will, come a cropper to Millie's conflicting designs.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Well, it had come a cropper, with the Catholic nuns and bishops criticizing him for a cruel and inhuman approach to poverty and the elderly.

    Blog text (27)

  • Although W.H. Auden claimed that he would "come a cropper" in it (42), it is not a very difficult form to understand, since it turns on a single, radical disjunction.

    Academic text (2003)

  • The new restaurant seemed promising, but it came a cropper after just a few weeks.

Synonyms

to flop
vsto come a cropper
19 4.0

To end without success, often in public like a show

adds suddenness and mishap instead of merely being unsuccessful
to come to grief
vsto come a cropper
  • Informal
1 7.3

To suffer sudden failure or serious trouble

focuses on a bad failure rather than general misfortune
to hit the buffers
vsto come a cropper
  • Literature
8.4

Suddenly stop or fail because of a big problem

does not imply a blocking obstacle, but a sudden unexpected mishap
the wheels fell off
vsto come a cropper
  • Informal
9.8

A situation that suddenly goes wrong after working well

does not require earlier smooth progress before the mishap

Antonyms

to succeed
846 2.0

To reach a goal after trying hard

to thrive
241 3.2

To grow well and be successful

How Badly

to crash
  • Specialized
156 3.2
to come a cropper
  • UK
1 9.8
to fail
898 1.0
to mess up
  • Informal
597 2.8
setback
148 3.6

Surface Forms

come a cropper infinitive
coming a cropper present participle
comes a cropper third person singular
came a cropper past
come a cropper past participle

Morphology

come + a + cropper

The sense 'to fail badly or suffer a sudden mishap' cannot be predicted from 'come' plus 'a cropper' because 'cropper' is archaic/rare and does not transparently convey mishap; knowing 'come' and the article 'a' gives no clue to this idiomatic sense. This is a historically rooted, language-specific phrase, so a B1 learner who only knows the literal constituents would not reliably infer the meaning.

Etymology

The idiom come a cropper may come from old horse riding. A cropper was a sudden, heavy fall from a horse where the rider was thrown forward and landed hard, so the phrase came to mean 'to fail badly' or 'have a sudden mishap'.