Scrumping

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The practice of unlawfully taking fruit from a farmer's land or garden
2. A colloquial expression denoting the theft of apples or similar produce from orchards without consent
3. Taking fruit such as apples from someone else's orchard without permission

Etymology: "Scrumping" is a verb form of "scrump," and the verb itself is a dialect variant of "scrimp," a word that once meant to shrink or shrivel. The idea is that fruit left to wither or shrivel on the tree, or picked up from the ground where it had shrunk, was the kind of windfall a thief might take. The link to shrinking is the thread that ties the two words together. The roots go back a long way. "Scrimp" comes from a Germanic base meaning "to shrink," which reached English through Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, and is related to the Old English "scrimman," meaning to shrink or draw up. Dialect speakers in southwest England kept the older sense alive, so "scrump" came to describe gathering the small, shrivelled apples that were left behind after the harvest. From that sense of picking up leftovers, the word moved to taking fruit that did not belong to you. The meaning shifted from scavenging what was left to helping oneself to someone else's orchard, which is the sense the word carries today.

Synonyms: stealing, pilfering, theft

Antonyms: giving, returning