Meaning of harvest In English

• 0 the time of year when crops are cut and collected from the fields, or the activity of cutting and collecting them, or the crops that are cut and collected:

  • the grain/potato/grape harvest

  • We had a good harvest this year.

  • Farmers are reporting a bumper (= very big) harvest this year.

  • It won't be long now till harvest (time).

• 1 to pick and collect crops, or to collect plants, animals, or fish to eat:

  • In the US, winter wheat is harvested in the early summer.

  • Farmers sort the vegetables when they harvest.

• 2 to take cells or other body parts from someone for medical use:

  • The donor organ is harvested at the accident scene and rushed to a hospital.

  • Stem cells harvested from cord blood have been used to successfully treat dozens of serious illnesses.

• 3 to collect large quantities of information, especially automatically:

  • The ministry will not harvest data about salaries, sexual orientation, or country of origin for foreigners.

  • Unauthorized use of personal information harvested from social networks is likely to anger potential customers.

• 4 the activity or time of gathering a crop, or a crop that is gathered:

  • [ U ] We picked the corn that had been missed during harvest.

  • [ C ] He had a large garden and loved to share his harvest with others.

• 5 to collect information about people, products, companies, etc. from the internet using a search engine (= a program that searches for particular words in documents on websites):

  • In computer jargon, search engines use robotic spiders - special software programs - that crawl continuously along the myriad trails of the World Wide Web, harvesting documents as they go.

• 6 to collect a natural resource in order to use it effectively:

  • Harvesting rainwater offers many advantages: it conserves municipal and well water and it is free.