scamp
Americannoun
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an unscrupulous and often mischievous person; rascal; rogue; scalawag.
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a playful, mischievous, or naughty young person; upstart.
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a grouper, Mycteroperca phenax, of Florida: so called from its habit of stealing bait.
verb (used with object)
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scamps,
present (3rd person singular)
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scamped,
past participle, past
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scamping
present participle
noun
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an idle mischievous person; rascal
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a mischievous child
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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scampernoun
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scampishnessnoun
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scampishadjective
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unscampedadjective
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scampinglyadverb
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scampishlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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scampsimple
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scampssimple
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have scampedperfect
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has scampedperfect
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am scampingprogressive
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are scampingprogressive
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is scampingprogressive
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have been scampingperfect progressive
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has been scampingperfect progressive
Past
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scampedsimple
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had scampedperfect
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was scampingprogressive
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were scampingprogressive
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had been scampingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scamp
1775–85; obsolete scamp to travel about idly or for mischief, perhaps < obsolete Dutch schampen to be gone < Old French escamper to decamp
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Without pressing the matter, the script by Mr. Johnson, Todd Bartels, Lou Howe and Matthew Miller illustrates how vital it is for a young scamp to get corrected by tough, pitiless direction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
He’s a master of both Andersonian acting styles: the freewheeling scamp and the scoundrel who speaks with a sniper’s precision.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2026
Still in his younger scamp days, George W. Bush lifted his pant leg to show off his cowboy boots and proudly declared that he was the black sheep of the family.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2022
On the flat, straight highways of middle America, you’ll often see a Chevy go by with a sticker in the window portraying a cartoon scamp tinkling on a Ford logo — or vice versa.
From Washington Post ● May 17, 2022
The beagle puppy was a scamp and a digger.
From "Dog Squad" by Chris Grabenstein
When it comes to naughty scamps, American literature has Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
Saturday was a night of four headliners at Glastonbury, with fans facing the cruel choice between pop queen Charli XCX, rock legend Neil Young, disco scamps Scissor Sisters and Doechii - rap's hottest new voice.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2025
Nearly as ripe for the Broadway-musical treatment are the loveable scamps who ran heavily indebted cities in the 19th century.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2023
One bird fell to the ground, and after the scamps scattered, Kentigern stroked its feathers and prayed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2022
Somebody, of course, hired the two scamps that took it to do the trick——” “Oh, were there two?” asked Neale, who had been running the car slowly again in order to listen.
From The Corner House Girls on a Tour Where they went, what they saw, and what they found by Grace Brooks Hill
Book reviews miss the irascible authority of Edmund Wilson, though on occasion the scamped book section is rescued by John Updike or V.S.
From Time Magazine Archive
As for last year's veiling ceremonies at Khartoum, the Sudanese for whom he had founded a school may have scamped the job.
From Time Magazine Archive
Germany has scamped its obligations in almost exactly the degree that his hand has faltered.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Chillicothe was then withdrawn, after receiving another shot, which killed one of her ship's company, and showing her unfitness for action through scamped work put upon her.
From The Gulf and Inland Waters The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
Moreover I have rather an eye for scamped carpentry: learned it off my father, going about the property with him.
From Foe-Farrell by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
But he has played up trivialities while scamping essentials: Becket's great career as Chancellor is passed over; his clashes with Henry, on becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, go unused.
From Time Magazine Archive
While scamping his studies as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, he came down with rheumatic fever, which left him with a bad heart.
From Time Magazine Archive
And there is no scamping of the invisible details.
From Time Magazine Archive
We may depend upon it that there was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping of the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for sea.
From English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 by James Anthony Froude
He had been taking a little pains with the work, doing it something like properly, instead of scamping and rushing it in the usual way.
From The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
