cream the crop
To pick out the most valuable or desirable things or people from a group for one's own interests.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“They always cream the crop when hiring new staff.”
“The university scouts travel across the country to cream the crop of talented young athletes for their team.”
“By offering the most generous scholarships, the prestigious institution manages to cream the crop of students, leaving fewer top-tier candidates for the smaller colleges.”
Derived from the phrase cream of the crop, an expression first appearing in the early 19th century to identify the most desirable portion of a collective. The term cream entered English from Old French cresme, itself from Late Latin cramum, used to denote the richest part of the milk that naturally rises to the surface. By the 17th century, the substance had become a standard metaphor for the social or intellectual elite, and the subsequent addition of crop—a term for the seasonal harvest—provided the complete agricultural idiom. The contemporary verb form is a late 20th-century truncation of this earlier noun phrase.
- 01
bumper crop
An excess of something; a large yield.
- 02
cream in one's coffee
Something that one relishes.
- 03
cream in one's jeans
To ejaculate while wearing one's trousers; to experience an orgasm while clothed.
- 04
cream of the crop
The best or most desirable among some selection.
- 05
crop up
To occur, especially suddenly or unexpectedly.
- 06
peaches and cream
A very enjoyable experience, usually used to describe something being unrealistically idyllic.
- 07
specialty crop
Any of various crops cultivated for, or managed and gathered for, human use (in food, personal hygiene, medicine, or decoration) rather than as animal feed, fodder, or forage.
- 08
whatever creams your twinkie
Do what you will, whatever makes you happy.
Last updated August 10, 2026