scrumptious
adjective
Rudyard KiplingLucy Maud MontgomeryBenjamin CheeverDick Bradley Parenting Shira Feder
Randall Radic
Cook's Magazine
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First appearing in English in the early 1800s, scrumptious is a mouth-watering word that is used to describe things delightful and delectable. It may have originated as an alteration of sumptuous, carrying the elegant connotations of its parent, though this is not certain. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a dialect form of the word used to mean “cheap, stingy” as its earliest use, and posits that it could instead have been formed by combining the verb scrimp, meaning “to be frugal or stingy,” with the adjective suffix -ious. (Scrimption meaning “a tiny amount or pittance” could be a relation.) How could a word with such a meaning lead to the wholly positive scrumptious? The OED points to a similar path taken by the word nice, which began as a word meaning “wanton or lacking restraint” and is now, well, nice. Regardless, scrumptious today is a fun word to say and play around with, a fact apparent to British author Roald Dahl who used the variation scrumdiddlyumptious in his novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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Examples of scrumptious in a Sentence
Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 26 Sep. 2024
Disneyland adds a few new surprises this Christmas holiday season
Many of the most scrumptious looking items on the holiday menu are plays on popular dishes already beloved by Disneylanders.
—Brady MacDonald, Orange County Register, 7 Nov. 2024
The menu features scrumptious scones, alongside seasonal delights, such as choux à la crème and a hazelnut Christmas tree.
—Sandra MacGregor, Forbes, 3 Nov. 2024
What's next: The caramel apple empanada, a scrumptious staple of the Y2K menu, will return for a limited time on Nov. 21 for $2.99.
—Jessica Boehm, Axios, 30 Oct. 2024
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“Scrumptious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scrumptious. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
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scrumptious
adjective
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