Meaning & use
harvest
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
The time or process of gathering crops once they are ripe, or the amount that is gathered.
Grammar: Often used with a season or crop: the wheat harvest.
Patterns
- the harvest of something
- a good harvest
Heavy rain ruined this year's apple harvest.
Everyone in the village helped bring in the harvest.
The farmers hoped for a bigger harvest than last year.
verbtransitive or intransitive
To pick or gather a crop when it is ripe.
Grammar: Can take an object (harvest wheat) or none (they harvest in autumn).
Patterns
- harvest something
- harvest from something
They harvest the grapes by hand every September.
We harvested enough tomatoes to share with the neighbors.
Machines harvested the whole field in a day.
verbtransitivefigurative
To collect or take something useful, such as energy, data or organs, from a source.
Grammar: Takes an object: harvest rainwater.
Patterns
- harvest something from something
The building harvests rainwater for its gardens.
Some apps harvest users' personal data.
Surgeons harvested the kidney for transplant.
nounsingularfigurative
The result or reward that comes from earlier effort or events.
Grammar: Used figuratively, often with of: the harvest of years of research.
Patterns
- the harvest of something
The scientist enjoyed the harvest of twenty years of research.
The trip's harvest was a notebook of stories.
The movement reaped a harvest of public support.
Word forms
| plural | harvests |
|---|---|
| third person singular | harvests |
| past tense | harvested |
| past participle | harvested |
| -ing form | harvesting |
Common combinations
- bring in the harvest
- Neighbors came to help bring in the harvest.
- bumper harvest
- A warm summer produced a bumper harvest.
- harvest festival
- The school held a harvest festival in October.
- poor harvest
- A poor harvest pushed up the price of bread.
- harvest a crop
- Farmers harvest a crop of corn in the fall.
- harvest time
- Harvest time is the busiest season on the farm.
Synonyms and how they differ
- crop
- Crop is the plants grown themselves, while harvest is the gathering or the amount gathered.
- reap
- Reap is a more literary verb and is common in the saying about reaping what you sow.
- gather
- Gather is a general word for collecting, and does not suggest crops are ripe.
- yield
- Yield is the amount produced by land or plants, while harvest includes the act of collecting it.
Opposites
Word family
- harvester noun
- a person or machine that gathers crops
- harvestable adjective
- ready or able to be gathered
- harvesting noun
- the activity of gathering crops
- harvestman noun
- a long-legged arachnid also called a daddy longlegs
Practice
Farmers usually ____ wheat in late summer, when the grain is ripe.
Choose one answer.
Harvest means to gather a ripe crop. Plant, irrigate and fertilize are tasks done earlier in the growing season, so they do not fit ripe grain.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “harvest”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.