"come a cropper" meaning in English

{
  "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",
      "word": "neck and crop"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "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": "31 69",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "26 74",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "16 84",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She came a cropper on the stairs and broke her leg.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "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",
      "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": [
        {
          "text": "She came a cropper on the stairs and broke her leg.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "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"
}