come a cropper

present singular third person comes a cropper · participle present coming a cropper · past came a cropper

1. originallyTo fall headlong from a horse.
2. UKidiomaticTo suffer some accident or misfortune; to fail.

   She came a cropper on the stairs and broke her leg.

   5 more examples

   I should feel certain that I should come a cropper, but still I'd try it. As you say, a fellow should try.

   1879, Anthony Trollope, chapter 67, in The Duke's Children

   You couldn't help feeling he'd be caught out one day, and then what an almighty cropper he'd come!

   1922, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “At the Bay”, in The Garden Party, London: Constable & Company, page 7

   We are accustomed to seeing Morphy conquer brilliantly against great odds; but this time he comes a cropper.

   1951 March, “Chess Caviar”, in Chess Review

   You tried to convey too much and you conveyed nothing. You came a cropper, major.

   1953, Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye, William Heinemann

   We had been taught Latin, French and German grammar; but English grammar was something we felt we were expected to infer from our reading – which is doubtless why I came a cropper over “its” and “it’s”.

   2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “Introduction – The Seventh Sense”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 15

3. informalTo die.

   “No, Cynthia is a protégée of my mother’s, the daughter of an old schoolfellow of hers, who married a rascally solicitor. He came a cropper, and the girl was left an orphan and penniless. My mother came to the rescue, and Cynthia has been with us nearly two years now.”

   1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 8