See come a cropper on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Possibly from the phrase neck and crop, in which crop may refer to the backside of a horse.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "comes a cropper",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "coming a cropper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "came a cropper",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "come a cropper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "come<,,came,come> a cropper"
},
"expansion": "come a cropper (third-person singular simple present comes a cropper, present participle coming a cropper, simple past came a cropper, past participle come a cropper)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100 0",
"word": "neck and crop"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "38 43 19",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "30 32 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To fall headlong from a horse."
],
"id": "en-come_a_cropper-en-verb-VZcwmo1e",
"links": [
[
"fall",
"fall"
],
[
"headlong",
"headlong"
],
[
"horse",
"horse"
]
],
"qualifier": "originally",
"raw_glosses": [
"(originally) To fall headlong from a horse."
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "38 43 19",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "30 32 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
4,
18
]
],
"text": "She came a cropper on the stairs and broke her leg.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
36,
50
]
],
"ref": "1879, Anthony Trollope, chapter 67, in The Duke's Children:",
"text": "I should feel certain that I should come a cropper, but still I'd try it. As you say, a fellow should try.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
80,
97
]
],
"ref": "1922, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “At the Bay”, in The Garden Party, London: Constable & Company, page 7:",
"text": "You couldn't help feeling he'd be caught out one day, and then what an almighty cropper he'd come!",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
92,
107
]
],
"ref": "1951 March, “Chess Caviar”, in Chess Review:",
"text": "We are accustomed to seeing Morphy conquer brilliantly against great odds; but this time he comes a cropper.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
59,
73
]
],
"ref": "1953, Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye, William Heinemann:",
"text": "You tried to convey too much and you conveyed nothing. You came a cropper, major.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
165,
179
]
],
"ref": "2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “Introduction – The Seventh Sense”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 15:",
"text": "We had been taught Latin, French and German grammar; but English grammar was something we felt we were expected to infer from our reading – which is doubtless why I came a cropper over “its” and “it’s”.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
85,
101
]
],
"ref": "2022 May 14, “Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place”, in The Economist, →ISSN:",
"text": "Although they were meant to reach the Moon no matter what, cryptocurrencies are also coming a cropper.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To suffer some accident or misfortune; to fail."
],
"id": "en-come_a_cropper-en-verb-Juo-kZeD",
"links": [
[
"suffer",
"suffer"
],
[
"misfortune",
"misfortune"
],
[
"fail",
"fail"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, idiomatic) To suffer some accident or misfortune; to fail."
],
"tags": [
"British",
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "38 43 19",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "30 32 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "29 30 40",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
125,
139
]
],
"ref": "1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 8:",
"text": "“No, Cynthia is a protégée of my mother’s, the daughter of an old schoolfellow of hers, who married a rascally solicitor. He came a cropper, and the girl was left an orphan and penniless. My mother came to the rescue, and Cynthia has been with us nearly two years now.”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To die."
],
"id": "en-come_a_cropper-en-verb-jx6TKsZL",
"links": [
[
"die",
"die"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) To die."
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-come a cropper.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100 0",
"word": "go a cropper"
}
],
"word": "come a cropper"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "Possibly from the phrase neck and crop, in which crop may refer to the backside of a horse.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "comes a cropper",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "coming a cropper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "came a cropper",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "come a cropper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "come<,,came,come> a cropper"
},
"expansion": "come a cropper (third-person singular simple present comes a cropper, present participle coming a cropper, simple past came a cropper, past participle come a cropper)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "neck and crop"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"To fall headlong from a horse."
],
"links": [
[
"fall",
"fall"
],
[
"headlong",
"headlong"
],
[
"horse",
"horse"
]
],
"qualifier": "originally",
"raw_glosses": [
"(originally) To fall headlong from a horse."
]
},
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
4,
18
]
],
"text": "She came a cropper on the stairs and broke her leg.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
36,
50
]
],
"ref": "1879, Anthony Trollope, chapter 67, in The Duke's Children:",
"text": "I should feel certain that I should come a cropper, but still I'd try it. As you say, a fellow should try.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
80,
97
]
],
"ref": "1922, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “At the Bay”, in The Garden Party, London: Constable & Company, page 7:",
"text": "You couldn't help feeling he'd be caught out one day, and then what an almighty cropper he'd come!",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
92,
107
]
],
"ref": "1951 March, “Chess Caviar”, in Chess Review:",
"text": "We are accustomed to seeing Morphy conquer brilliantly against great odds; but this time he comes a cropper.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
59,
73
]
],
"ref": "1953, Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye, William Heinemann:",
"text": "You tried to convey too much and you conveyed nothing. You came a cropper, major.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
165,
179
]
],
"ref": "2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “Introduction – The Seventh Sense”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 15:",
"text": "We had been taught Latin, French and German grammar; but English grammar was something we felt we were expected to infer from our reading – which is doubtless why I came a cropper over “its” and “it’s”.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
85,
101
]
],
"ref": "2022 May 14, “Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place”, in The Economist, →ISSN:",
"text": "Although they were meant to reach the Moon no matter what, cryptocurrencies are also coming a cropper.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To suffer some accident or misfortune; to fail."
],
"links": [
[
"suffer",
"suffer"
],
[
"misfortune",
"misfortune"
],
[
"fail",
"fail"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, idiomatic) To suffer some accident or misfortune; to fail."
],
"tags": [
"British",
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English informal terms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
125,
139
]
],
"ref": "1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 8:",
"text": "“No, Cynthia is a protégée of my mother’s, the daughter of an old schoolfellow of hers, who married a rascally solicitor. He came a cropper, and the girl was left an orphan and penniless. My mother came to the rescue, and Cynthia has been with us nearly two years now.”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To die."
],
"links": [
[
"die",
"die"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) To die."
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-come a cropper.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/En-au-come_a_cropper.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "go a cropper"
}
],
"word": "come a cropper"
}
Download raw JSONL data for come a cropper meaning in All languages combined (4.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (c3cc510 and 1d3fdbf). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.