scrump
/ˈskɹʌmp/
scrump noun: anything small or undersized.
Noun
scrump (plural scrumps)
- Anything small or undersized.
- A withered, shrivelled, or undergrown person.
- A small apple.
Verb
scrump (third-person singular simple present scrumps, present participle scrumping, simple past and past participle scrumped)
- To gather windfalls or small apples left on trees.
- To steal fruit, especially apples, from a garden or orchard.
- (we've all seen trees, and arent Adam and Eve condemned for having gone scrumping?; interestingly a great philosopher recalled Saint Augustine spent a lot of his long life being racked with guilt for having gone scrumping for some pears when he was a boy! ...)1994, Edward Bond, Edward Bond Letters, volume 1, page 180
- [I]t was something that every schoolboy of my generation almost `had' to do, as obligatory a proof of impending manliness as scrumping apples or pulling girls' pigtails.
I told myself I'd never scrump gooseberries again, or go scrumping apples with Huw and Moi ...2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 12
- To pinch, stint; to beat down in price.
- To have sex.
Forms of scrump
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | scrumps |
| alternative form | skrump |
| alternative form | skrimp |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | scrumps |
| present participle | scrumping |
| past participle | scrumped |
| past | scrumped |
Origin of scrump
From a dialectal variation of scrimp, probably from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrimpen (“to shrivel up, shrink”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną, *skrimbaną (“to shrink”), related to Old English sċrimman (“to shrink, draw up, contract”). Related to dialectal English skrammed (“benumbed, paralysed”), English shrimp.
Words formed from scrump
Words that rhyme with scrump
18 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about scrump
- What does scrump mean?
- Scrump means anything small or undersized.
- What part of speech is scrump?
- Scrump can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce scrump?
- Scrump is pronounced /ˈskɹʌmp/ (UK).
- What is the plural of scrump?
- The plural of scrump is scrumps.
Words near scrump in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scrump (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-scrump.wav.
Cite this entry: “scrump.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scrump. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.