Link Centre Dictionary

scrumptious

scrump·tious

UK/ˈskɹʌm(p)ʃəs/ US/ˈskrəm(p)ʃəs/ uncommon informal obsolete rare

adjective

Origin

Probably from scrimp (“to put on short allowance, limit, straiten; to be frugal”) + -ious (suffix forming adjectives denoting the presence of a quality in any degree (usually an abundance)), possibly modelled after scrimption (“small portion, little bit, scrap”). If that hypothesis is true, then scrumpy may be related, via roots referring to little amounts. Douglas Harper instead derives the word from sumptuous. As the early cites in British English have a clearly different sense from the early cites in American English, only to merge together later, it may be that there were originally two unrelated words.

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.