sharecropper
UK[ˈʃeəˌkrɒpə]US[ˈʃerˌkrɑːpər]
n
a tenant farmer who gives a part of each crop as rent.
Morpheme Breakdown
share
crop
er
share
a portion or division
crop
the yield of a plant
er
one who does something
Etymology
the word 'sharecropper' is a transparent compound formed from three english elements. 'share' originates from the old english 'scearu,' meaning a division or portion, reflecting the practice of dividing the harvest. 'crop' comes from the old english 'cropp,' referring to the produce of the land. the agent suffix '-er' denotes a person performing an action. the term emerged in the 19th century american south to describe an agricultural labor system where a tenant farmer works land in exchange for a share of the produced crop, directly and logically combining the concepts of dividing ('share') the agricultural yield ('crop') by the person ('-er') who performs the labor.
Analysis
Structure: share + crop + er
share (old english, meaning 'a portion or division'); crop (old english, meaning 'the yield of a plant'); er (old english, agent noun suffix, meaning 'one who does something').
Examples
after the civil war, many formerly enslaved people became sharecroppers on the same land they had worked before.
the sharecropper struggled to make a profit after giving half his cotton harvest to the landowner.
the system of sharecropping often trapped families in cycles of debt and poverty.