bumper crop

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an exceptionally large and abundant harvest that significantly exceeds expectations or normal yields, producing a surplus of produce that may depress market prices even as it represents agricultural success; the word bumper in this context means something unusually large of its kind, probably derived from the sense of a full glass — a brimming bumper of wine — and the phrase has been in agricultural use since the nineteenth century; in figurative use a bumper crop refers to any unexpectedly large or abundant yield of results, ideas, problems, or opportunities; a bumper crop of applicants for a job position, a bumper crop of new regulations, or a bumper crop of unexpected problems all use the agricultural abundance metaphor to describe quantities that exceed what was planned for or anticipated