Reaper
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 One who reaps; a person employed to harvest crops from the fields by reaping.
"Even as we looked some rumour seemed to have spread, for we saw the reapers hurrying from the fields."
- 2 Each of the small laths laid across the rafters of a sloping roof to bear the tiles. India, obsolete
- 3 farm machine that gathers a food crop from the fields wordnet
- 4 A machine used to harvest crops.
- 5 someone who helps to gather the harvest wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 Ellipsis of Grim Reaper. abbreviation, alt-of, capitalized, ellipsis, often
"Thereafter when their cups were brimmed anew with foaming wine the Red Foliot spake among them and said, “O ye lords of Witchland, will you that I speak a dirge in honour of Gorice the King that the dark reaper hath this day gathered?”"
- 7 A recluse spider (Loxosceles and Sicarius spp.).
Example
More examples"Behold the days come saith the LORD that the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed and the mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills shall melt."
Etymology
From Middle English reper, repare, repere, *riper (the last, attested only in surnames Ryper, Riper, etc.), from Old English rīpere (“reaper”), equivalent to reap + -er.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.