Definition

1. Noun:
   • A tenant farmer who works land owned by another and pays rent by giving a share of the crops to the landowner: A "sharecropper" is a person, typically in an agricultural system, who farms land they do not own. In exchange for the right to use the land, housing, and often seeds and tools, they give a portion (or share) of the harvested crop to the landowner as payment.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:
  • After the Civil War, many formerly enslaved people became sharecroppers.
  • The sharecropper gave half of his cotton harvest to the landowner.
  • Her family's history includes generations of sharecroppers working the same land.

Advanced Usage

• Historical and Socioeconomic Context: The term "sharecropper" is strongly associated with the post-Civil War Southern United States, describing an agricultural labor system that often trapped farmers in cycles of debt and poverty.
  • The novel depicts the harsh life of a sharecropper family in the early 20th century.

Variants and Related Words

• Sharecrop (verb): To work as a sharecropper; to farm land under a sharecropping agreement.
  • His grandfather had to sharecrop to survive.
• Sharecropping (noun): The system or practice of farming in which a sharecropper works the land.
  • Sharecropping was a dominant form of agriculture in the region for decades.

Synonyms

• Tenant farmer: A farmer who rents land from a landlord. (Note: A tenant farmer often pays cash rent, while a sharecropper pays with a share of the crop.)
• Cropper: An informal or historical term for a sharecropper.
• Metayer: (From French) A farmer who pays a share of the produce as rent; a system similar to sharecropping.

Related Phrases

• To be in debt to the company store: This phrase is often associated with the sharecropper experience, describing a cycle of debt where farmers owed more for their supplies than their crop share was worth.
  • Many sharecroppers lived in poverty, perpetually in debt to the company store.

Noun

1. small farmers and tenants