sharecropper
/'ʃeəkrɔpə/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- 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.