Reap

How to spell reap

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce reap

What does reap mean?

1. verbTo receive something, especially a benefit or consequence, as the natural result of earlier action or effort.
2. verbTo cut and gather a crop, especially grain, at harvest time.

Reap in a sentence

• Investors who stayed patient now reap a steady return.

• The farmers reap the wheat before the autumn rains arrive.

• Those who train hard tend to reap the rewards on race day.

• In the old days workers would reap the barley by hand with sickles.

Where does reap come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English verb ripan, sometimes written reopan, which meant to cut grain with a sickle and gather in the harvest. It belongs to a Germanic family of words and is closely tied to the adjective 'ripe', since grain that is ripe is exactly what is ready to be cut; you can hear the shared sense in the idea that you reap what has ripened. The spelling settled with the 'ea' pairing that English often uses for this long 'ee' sound, the same vowel team found in 'heap', 'leap' and 'cheap'. From its very literal farming meaning, the word broadened by the medieval period into a figurative sense of gaining something as the natural result of earlier effort, as in reaping a reward. The agricultural noun 'reaper', for both the harvester and later the machine, comes from the same root, which is why the grim personification of death carries a scythe.

How the word is built

• reap (single native root, from Old English ripan: to cut grain, harvest)