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Great Expectations vocabulary

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Definition:

Defn: Having the ears cropped.

Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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Cropping sometimes occurred as a standalone punishment (such as in the case of William Prynne for seditious libel), where criminals' ears would be cut off with a blade. Cropping was also a secondary punishment to having criminals' ears nailed to the pillory (with the intention that their body movements would tear them off). In 1538 Thomas Barrie spent a whole day with his ears nailed to the pillory in Newbury, England, before having them cut off to release him.

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Uses:

"A soldier is a gentleman, and should keep company with gentlemen," answered the flushed youth. "Mr. Le Gallais is no mate for cavaliers. I say to his face that he is a cropeared rebel, a busybody, and a pestilent knave."

H.G. Keen. St. George's Cross

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the word of Mr Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity

James Joyce. Ulysses.

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“Do ye know that if a man among us had done such a thing, to put the rest in danger, he would ha’ likely had his ears cropped, or been flogged, if not killed outright?”

Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)

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In Rhode Island, cropping was a punishment for crimes such as counterfeiting money, perjury, and "burning houses, barns, and outbuildings" (but not amounting to arson). Cropping (along with the pillory and stocks) was abolished in Tennessee in 1829, with abolition further afield starting from approximately 1839.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cropping_(punishment)#History

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Now, don’t you think the lad would be handsomer cropped? It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something fierce—get me a scissors—something fierce and trim! Besides, it’s infernal affectation—devilish conceit it is, to cherish our ears—we’re asses enough without them.

Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)

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In the room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy)

Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)