Word of the Day

: November 23, 2023

scrumptious

adjective SKRUMP-shus

What It Means

Scrumptious is an informal word that is usually used as a synonym of delicious, but can also mean “delightful” or “excellent.”

// Parsnips may be an unconventional vegetable to serve on Turkey Day, but they are scrumptious with a little maple syrup drizzled on top.

See the entry >

scrumptious in Context

“Need a scrumptious Thanksgiving side dish that will have your holiday guests scrambling for the biggest helping? … This Thanksgiving casserole is more like a dessert than a side dish. It features a rich, silky smooth sweet potato filling that entices the taste buds with cream, butter, pure vanilla extract, and freshly grated nutmeg.” — USA Today, 18 Nov. 2022

Did You Know?

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.