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scrump

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Archived revision by Leasnam (talk | contribs) as of 20:23, 17 August 2019.

English

'Scrumpers'
Henry Towneley Green
(1867)

Alternative forms

Etymology

From a dialectal variation of scrimp, probably from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] 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.

Pronunciation

Noun

scrump (plural scrumps)

  1. (dialectal) Anything small or undersized.
  2. (dialectal, by extension) A withered, shrivelled, or undergrown person.
  3. (dialectal) A small apple.

Verb

scrump (third-person singular simple present scrumps, present participle scrumping, simple past and past participle scrumped)

  1. (dialectal) To gather windfalls or small apples left on trees.
  2. To steal fruit, especially apples, from a garden or orchard.
    • 1994, Edward Bond, Edward Bond Letters: Vol 1, page 180
      (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!...)
    • 1997, Caradog Prichard, ‎Philip Mitchell, One Moonlit Night - Page 18
      I told myself I'd never scrump gooseberries again, or go scrumping apples with Huw and Moi []
  3. (dialectal) To pinch, stint; to beat down in price.

Translations

See also

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