[f. CROP sb. 13 or v. 8 b.] One who has his hair cropped short; applied esp. to the Irish rebels of 1798, who wore their hair cut very short as a sign of sympathy with the French Revolution.
1798. Ballad, in Madden, Lit. Rem. United Irishmen (1887), 122. Down Croppy, down Orange, down great, and down small.
c. 1801. Remin. fugitive Loyalist, in Eng. Hist. Rev., July (1886), 539. Several of them … swore they would die with me or make the ‘Croppies lie down,’ alluding to a loyal song in which the rebel party was so styled.
1861. May, Const. Hist. (1863), II. xvi. 536. The wretched ‘croppies’ were scourged, pitch-capped, picketed … and shot.
¶ The following appear in Dictionaries.
1847–78. Halliwell, Croppy, a Roundhead.
1874. Slang Dict., Croppie, a person who has had his hair cut, or cropped, in prison. Formerly those who had been cropped (i.e., had their ears cut off and their noses slit) by the public executioner were called croppies; then the Puritans received the reversion of the title.
