crumb

American  

[kruhm] / krʌm /

noun

crumbs plural

1. a small particle of bread, cake, etc., that has broken off.

2. a small particle or portion of anything; fragment; bit.

   Synonyms:

   speck, sliver, morsel, shred, scrap

3. the soft inner portion of a bread (distinguished from crust).

4. crumbs, a cake topping made of sugar, flour, butter, and spice, usually crumbled on top of the raw batter and baked with the cake.

5. Slang. a contemptibly objectionable or worthless person.

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verb (used with object)

crumbs, present (3rd person singular) crumbed, past participle, past crumbing present participle

1. Cooking. to dress or prepare with crumbs.

2. to break into crumbs or small fragments.

3. to remove crumbs from.

   The waiter crumbed the table.

crumb British  

/ krʌm /

noun

1. a small fragment of bread, cake, or other baked foods

2. a small piece or bit

   crumbs of information

3. the soft inner part of bread

4. slang a contemptible person

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verb

1. (tr) to prepare or cover (food) with breadcrumbs

2. to break into small fragments

adjective

1. (esp of pie crusts) made with a mixture of biscuit crumbs, sugar, etc

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• crumber
  noun
• crumbable
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• crumbs
  plural

Participles

• crumbing
  present
• crumbed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• crumb
  simple
• crumbs
  simple
• have crumbed
  perfect
• has crumbed
  perfect
• are crumbing
  progressive
• am crumbing
  progressive
• is crumbing
  progressive
• have been crumbing
  perfect progressive
• has been crumbing
  perfect progressive

Past

• crumbed
  simple
• had crumbed
  perfect
• was crumbing
  progressive
• were crumbing
  progressive
• had been crumbing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will crumb
  simple
• will have crumbed
  perfect
• will be crumbing
  progressive
• will have been crumbing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of crumb

before 1000; Middle English crome, crume, Old English cruma; akin to Dutch kruim, German Krume crumb, Latin grūmus heap of earth

Explanation

A crumb is a very tiny piece of food. Some recipes instruct you to top a dish with bread crumbs before you bake it. Crumbs are what you're left with after finishing a box of cookies or a bag of tortilla chips — the bits that are too small to eat. You can also talk about other, non-edible types of crumbs, like the crumb of wisdom in an otherwise silly movie or the crumb of information a detective finds at a crime scene. The Old English root is cruma, "crumb," and it's thought that the silent b was influenced by words like dumb.

Example Sentences

Mind-bending psychedelia is present in the work of artists like Robert Crumb and Karl Wirsum.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 24, 2025

Crumb became famous, and while he liked the money and acclaim, he never got comfortable with it.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2025

And for years, one of my sisters and I have referred to each other as Salacious Crumb, Jabba the Hutt’s shrill-voiced and crusty little jester, whenever one of us looks particularly unseemly.

From Salon • May 4, 2024

Mark Dodson, who voiced strange puppet creatures in “Star Wars,” including Salacious B. Crumb, the cackling monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt, and “Gremlins” films, died on Saturday.

From New York Times • Mar. 3, 2024

Crumb, krum, n. a small bit or morsel of bread: a small particle of anything: the soft part of bread.—v.t. to break into crumbs: to fill with crumbs.—ns.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various