crumpet

English

A buttered crumpet

Etymology

17th century, either from crompid cake (“wafer, literally, curled-up cake”), from crompid, form of crumpen (“to curl up”); cognate to crumpled. Alternate etymology is from Celtic; compare Breton krampouezh (“crepe, pancake”) and Welsh crempog (“pancake”).

Sense of “desirable woman” attested 1936, possibly as cockney rhyming slang for strumpet; alternatively, compare tart (“loose woman, prostitute”) (itself possibly cockney rhyming slang for heart or sweetheart). Note that muffin has a similar sense, and that, in 19th and early 20th centuries, "Muffins and crumpets" was a familiar street-cry in UK.

Pronunciation

• krŭm'pĭt,
• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹʌmpɪt/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmpɪt

Noun

crumpet (countable and uncountable, plural crumpets)

1. A type of savoury cake, typically flat and round, made from batter and yeast, containing many small holes and served toasted, usually with butter.
   • 1995, Tedi Sarafian, Tank Girl, spoken by T-Saint, Deetee & Booger (respectively) (Ice-T, Jeff Kober, and Reg E. Cathey):

     T-Saint: I say we kill 'em!
     Donner: I say we hump 'em.
     Booga: I say we eat crumpets and tea.
     Deetee: Tasty! Crumpets and tea. All in favor of crumpets and tea, say "I."
     All: I!
     T-Saint: Shut up! Ain't gonna be no crumpets and tea.

2. (UK, slang, dated, countable, uncountable) A sexually attractive person or, collectively, people; usually referring to women.

   Joan Bakewell was famously described as "the thinking man's crumpet".

   John and his mates have gone out to find themselves some crumpet.

   • 1969, Jackie Collins, The Stud, reprint edition, Simon & Schuster, published 1999, →ISBN, page 32:

     The regulars are all guys, a varied selection, my friends. There's Sammy—small, wiry, dark-haired. A hat manufacturer, crumpet mad—always chatting up different birds.

   • 2014 November 12, Michael Hogan, “Have we reached peak Benedict Cumberbatch?”, in The Telegraph‎^[1]:

     Our lives are saturated with middle-class crumpet Benedict Cumberbatch - but does he deserve the attention, asks Michael Hogan

Synonyms

• (sexually desirable person): See Thesaurus:beautiful person

Derived terms

• (sexually desirable person): bit of crumpet, piece of crumpet, thinking man's crumpet

Related terms

• crumple, crumpled

Translations

savoury cake

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小圓烤餅 / 小圆烤饼 (xiǎoyuánkǎobǐng), 烤麵餅 / 烤面饼 (kǎomiànbǐng)

• Czech: lívanec (cs) m
• Finnish: crumpet (fi)
• French: crumpet (fr) m
• Polish: racuch (pl) m
• Russian: кра́мпет (ru) m (krámpet)
• Swedish: tekaka (sv) c

sexually attractive woman

• Czech: kočka (cs) f, baba (cs) f, roštěnka (cs) f

See also

• pikelet
• strumpet
• tart

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “crumpet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Where To Buy English Crumpets In America