Scrumped

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have stolen fruit from someone else's orchard or garden; to have taken something, often with a sense of mischief or illicitness; to have engaged in the act of stealing, typically referring to fruit in a playful context
2. To participate in the act of stealing produce or crops, usually done secretly or in a playful manner; to have illicitly taken something, often fruit, from another's property; to have committed theft, particularly in relation to agricultural goods
3. To have taken fruits or vegetables from another without permission, often done in a cheeky or mischievous way; to have engaged in small-scale theft related to gardening or agriculture; to have stolen items, especially edible treats, from someone else's property

Etymology: "Scrumped" is the past tense of "scrump," a dialect verb meaning to steal fruit from a garden or orchard, and its roots run back to the idea of shrinking. The verb is a dialectal variant of "scrimp," which goes back to a Germanic word for shrinking or shriveling, and it reaches English through Middle Dutch or Middle Low German. The same root produced Old English "scrimman," meaning to shrink or draw up, and the sense of contraction is still visible in the family of words around it. Related English words show the old meaning more clearly. Dialect "skrammed" meant benumbed or paralysed, a sense of being drawn tight and stiff, and "shrimp" shares the same root in its sense of something small and shrunken. Stealing windfalls and apples from a neighbour's tree is an odd thing to link with shrinking, but the connection lies in the verb's older sense of drawing in or grabbing up what is nearby.