different between cropper vs crupper

English

Etymology 1

Noun

cropper (plural croppers)

1. (normally confined to the expression come a cropper) A fall, a tumble; a decided failure.
   • 1900, Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon Books, (translated by James Strachey) page: 185:

     But to myself I thought: ‘Considering that for eight whole years I sat on the front bench as top of the class while he drifted about somewhere in the middle, he can hardly fail to nourish a wish, left over from his schooldays, that some day or other I may come a complete cropper.’

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 29:

     You're riding for a fall, Healey, you know that? There are hedges and ditches ahead and you are on course for an almighty cropper.

Etymology 2

crop +? -er, in reference to a bird's crop.

Noun

cropper (plural croppers)

1. A breed of domestic pigeon with large crop.

Etymology 3

crop +? -er, in reference to agricultural crops.

Noun

cropper (plural croppers)

1. A person who nurtures and gathers a crop.
2. A variety of plant producing a good harvest.

Etymology 4

crop +? -er, from the verb.

Noun

cropper (plural croppers)

1. A machine for cropping, as for shearing off bolts or rod iron, or for facing cloth.

English

Etymology

From Middle English crupper, crouper, cropere, from Anglo-Norman cruper, cropere, from Old French cropiere, crupiere, from the same Germanic root as croup. Doublet of croupiere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??p?/

Noun

crupper (plural cruppers)

1. A strap, looped under a horse's tail, used to stop a saddle from slipping.
   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 1:

     Our knight did bear no less a pack / Of his own buttocks on his back: / Which now had almost got the upper- / Hand of his head, for want of crupper.

   • 1784, Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, A continuation of the history and adventures of the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, tr. William Augustus Yardley, The Novelist's Magazine volume 16, page 112:

     he e?pied a mule's crupper, which hung to the ceiling of the room; this he took down, and tendering it to Don Quixote, went on, ?aying...

   • 1877, Anna Sewell, Black Beauty:

     Captain went out in the cab all the morning. Harry came in after school to feed me and give me water. In the afternoon I was put into the cab. Jerry took as much pains to see if the collar and bridle fitted comfortably as if he had been John Manly over again. When the crupper was let out a hole or two it all fitted well. There was no check-rein, no curb, nothing but a plain ring snaffle. What a blessing that was!

   • 1882, Edmondo de Amicis, Morocco: Its People & Places, tr. C. Rollin-Tilton:

     I sought among the mules one with a mild expression of generosity and gentleness in its eyes, and found it in a white mule with a crupper adorned with arabesques.

2. The buttocks or rump, especially of a horse.

   Synonym: croupe

3. A piece of armour covering the hindquarters of a horse.

Translations

Verb

crupper (third-person singular simple present cruppers, present participle cruppering, simple past and past participle cruppered)

1. To fit with a crupper; to place a crupper upon.

   to crupper a horse

Related terms

• curple