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reaper

noun
/ˈɹiːpɚ/

Etymology

From Middle English reper, repare, repere, *riper (the last, attested only in surnames Ryper, Riper, etc.), from Old English rīpere (“reaper”), equivalent to reap + -er.

  1. inherited from rīpere — “reaper”
  2. inherited from reper

Definitions

  1. One who reaps

    One who reaps; a person employed to harvest crops from the fields by reaping.

    • Even as we looked some rumour seemed to have spread, for we saw the reapers hurrying from the fields.

  2. A machine used to harvest crops.

  3. Ellipsis of Grim Reaper.

    • Thereafter when their cups were brimmed anew with foaming wine the Red Foliot spake among them and said, “O ye lords of Witchland, will you that I speak a dirge in honour of Gorice the King that the dark reaper hath this day gathered?”
    • Don't fear the Reaper / We'll be able to fly
    • Why is the Grim Reaper a man? True, the noun ending would theoretically allow us to visualize the reaper as a woman as well, but we don't.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. A recluse spider (Loxosceles and Sicarius spp.).

    2. Each of the small laths laid across the rafters of a sloping roof to bear the tiles.

The neighborhood

Derived

Grim Reaper, Norwood reaper, reaper-binder, reaper-thresher

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at reaper. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01reaper02machine03electricity04charged05charge06attack07death

A definitional loop anchored at reaper. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at reaper

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA