Word of the Day: Harvest

Harvest
- noun
- verb

Pronunciation:
[HAR-vist]

Definition:
- Noun
1. Also, harvesting. The gathering of crops.
2. the season when ripened crops are gathered.
3. a crop or yield of one growing season.

- verb
4. to gather (a crop or the like); reap.
5. to gather the crop from: to harvest the fields.
6. to gain, win, acquire, or use (a prize, product, or result of any past act, process, plan, etc.).

Etymology:
O.E. haerfest "autumn, period between August and November," from P.Gmc. *harbitas (cf. O.S. hervist, O.Fris., Du. herfst, Ger. Herbst "autumn," O.N. haust "harvest"), from PIE *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest" (cf. Skt. krpana- "sword," krpani "shears;" Gk. karpos "fruit," karpizomai "make harvest of;" L. carpere "to cut, divide, pluck;" Lith. kerpu "cut;" M.Ir. cerbaim "cut").

The borrowing of autumn and the use of fall in a seasonal sense gradually focused the meaning of harvest to "the time of gathering crops" (mid-13c.), then to the action itself and the product of the action (after c.1300). Figurative use by 1530s. Harvest home (1590s) is the occasion of bringing home the last of the harvest; harvest moon (1706) is that which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox.

Quote with the word:
"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few."
- Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 9:37.

I like these old, agricultural words.