harvest

The word “harvest” means the gathering in of a ripe crop, or the crop itself once gathered. In plain terms, bringing in a ripe crop — or, more loosely, gathering any valuable result of work.

“Harvest” is pronounced HAH-vihst (/ˈhɑɹ.vəst/ in IPA).

Here is “harvest” used in a sentence: “Farmers work long hours during the harvest to bring the wheat in before the rain.”

Depending on how it is used, “harvest” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “harvest” comes from Old English. From Old English hærfest, meaning "autumn" or "harvest-time" — the word originally named the season itself before it came to mean the act of reaping.

“Harvest” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A2 level.

“Harvest” has 4 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the gathering in of a ripe crop, or the crop itself once gathered.

A crop is the plants grown for food or another use, while the harvest is the act of gathering that crop once it is ripe — and, by extension, the gathered produce itself. You grow a crop all season, but you bring in the harvest at the end of it.

Both verbs mean to gather a ripe crop, but "reap" is older and more literary, surviving mainly in figurative phrases such as "reap the rewards" and "you reap what you sow." "Harvest" is the standard everyday word for gathering crops, and it also covers collecting things like data or organs in an organized way.

Harvest is traditionally the season when ripe crops are gathered, falling roughly in early autumn in temperate climates. The exact timing varies by crop and region, because each plant is harvested when it reaches ripeness rather than on a fixed date.