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crumpet

[kruhm-pit]
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noun Chiefly British.
  1. a round soft unsweetened bread resembling a muffin, cooked on a griddle or the like, and often toasted.
  2. British Slang. a sexually attractive woman.
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Origin of crumpet

1350–1400; short for crumpetcake curled cake, equivalent to Middle English crompid (past participle of crumpen, variant of crampen to bend, curl (see cramp1) + cake
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for crumpet

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • Breaking his crumpet is for him as bad as breaking one of his limbs.

  • Crumpet did the same, though with less cordiality in his manner.

    Camp-fire and Wigwam

    Edward Sylvester Ellis

  • Her hesitation caused him to neglect his crumpet, to look up at her.

    T. Tembarom

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

  • Mrs. Crumpet agreed to wait, while Miss Bixby went for the books.

    The Librarian at Play

    Edmund Lester Pearson

  • At the issue desk was Mrs. Crumpet, having her books charged.

    The Librarian at Play

    Edmund Lester Pearson

British Dictionary definitions for crumpet

crumpet

noun mainly British
  1. a light soft yeast cake full of small holes on the top side, eaten toasted and buttered
  2. (in Scotland) a large flat sweetened cake made of batter
  3. slang women collectively
  4. a piece of crumpet slang a sexually desirable woman
  5. not worth a crumpet Australian slang utterly worthless
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Word Origin

C17: of uncertain origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for crumpet

n.

1690s, perhaps from crompid cake "wafer," literally "curled-up cake" (1382; Wyclif's rendering of Hebrew raqiq in Ex. 29:23), from crompid, past participle of crumpen "curl up." Alternative etymology is from Celtic (cf. Breton krampoez "thin, flat cake"). Slang meaning "woman regarded as a sex object" is first recorded 1936.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper