reaper

 

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reaper

Wikipedia

 

• (American English) IPA^(key): /ˈɹiːpɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːpə(ɹ)

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.

reaper (plural reapers)

1. One who reaps; a person employed to harvest crops from the fields by reaping.
   • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     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. (often capitalized) Ellipsis of Grim Reaper.
   • 1976, Buck Dharma (lyrics and music), “Don't Fear the Reaper”, performed by Blue Öyster Cult:

     Don't fear the Reaper / We'll be able to fly

   • 1999, Karl S. Guthke, The Gender of Death: A Cultural History in Art and Literature, page 7:

     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.

   • 2014, “Graveyard Shift”, performed by The Acacia Strain:

     She told me she wanted to meet the reaper
     I had only done her a favor
     She didn't deserve to die
     But I deserved to kill her

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

• Grim Reaper
• reaper-binder
• reaper-thresher

• reap

reaper (plural reapers)

1. (India, obsolete) Each of the small laths laid across the rafters of a sloping roof to bear the tiles.

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “reaper”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […].

• Pearre, Perera, rerape