1
as in monkey
an appealingly mischievous person
those little scamps are always getting into trouble, but no one has the heart to punish them
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in villain
a mean, evil, or unprincipled person
an insincere and ruthlessly ambitious scamp who was willing to do anything to win the reality show's grand prize
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to botch
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of scamp
David Grann, New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2025
Season 2 brings viewers back to Nevermore Academy, the gothic high school for supernatural scamps that Wednesday enrolled in last time around, and subsequently helped save from Season 1 villains Tyler (Hunter Doohan) and Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci, a one-time Wednesday herself).
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 6 Aug. 2025
Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021
Sunshine scamps: The Florida Project is a delighful, poignant, dark-and-light movie about kids living on the seedy side of Disney.
—Rebecca Onion, Slate Magazine, 6 Oct. 2017
See All Example Sentences for scamp
Noun
McKelway, who wrote for the magazine from the nineteen-thirties to the sixties, specialized in true-crime stories, bringing to life a gallery of scamps and swindlers and impostors.
—David Grann, New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2025
Season 2 brings viewers back to Nevermore Academy, the gothic high school for supernatural scamps that Wednesday enrolled in last time around, and subsequently helped save from Season 1 villains Tyler (Hunter Doohan) and Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci, a one-time Wednesday herself).
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 6 Aug. 2025
Verb
While its individual characters feel largely interchangeable, the movie hums with life and pleasure when Borowczyk lets his nuns twirl around the chapel in a painterly tableau and scamp through the convent.
—Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021
Sunshine scamps: The Florida Project is a delighful, poignant, dark-and-light movie about kids living on the seedy side of Disney.
—Rebecca Onion, Slate Magazine, 6 Oct. 2017
See All Example Sentences for scamp
Recent Examples of Synonyms for scamp
Noun
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In a portion of that video, players can be heard making monkey animal noises while a Black student was pitching for Crofton.—
Caroline Foreback,
CBS News,
1 May 2026
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In the sketch, Sherman wore oversized fake teeth and mocked Wood’s Manchester accent in a line about removing fluoride from water and eating monkeys.—
Larisha Paul,
Rolling Stone,
29 Apr. 2026
Noun
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In its earlier days, The Boys might have done something with how Nanjiani’s Eternals and Rogen’s The Green Hornet both underperformed, and the Kick-Ass movies in which Mintz-Plasse played a villain left little cultural footprint.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
29 Apr. 2026
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Most of his videos, filmed in a local studio or sometimes on the streets of Charlotte, are high-quality shorts showing him in throes of battle with classic villains like Killer Croc or Bane.—
Charlotte Observer,
Charlotte Observer,
29 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy botched an uncontested breakout pass, and Tage Thompson hounded Fraser Minten to force a turnover.—
Matthew Fairburn,
New York Times,
27 Apr. 2026
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After Maxey and Vucevic traded 3-pointers, the Celtics botched two entry passes for their 15th and 16th turnovers of the night.—
Zack Cox,
Boston Herald,
25 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Something is wrong at New Hyde, a malevolent devil or monster which attacks patients, including Pepper.—
John Hopewell,
Variety,
27 Apr. 2026
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While the movie has some fun asking whether people actually want to know everything about their partners (a devil’s bargain since time immemorial), its real interest lies in how that knowledge is colored by who shares it.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
31 Mar. 2026
Noun
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This time the closing hole was a brute, the toughest at Harbour Town on Sunday.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
19 Apr. 2026
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And what better way to force that out of her than to put her up against a brute of a man who has all the confidence in the world?—
Jason P. Frank,
Vulture,
16 Apr. 2026
Verb
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San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who polled at 5% in the CBS survey, accused Becerra of bungling the federal government’s response to COVID-19, mpox and the influx in child migrants under former President Joe Biden.—
Ben Paviour,
Sacbee.com,
29 Apr. 2026
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Authorities bungle the case but still arrest a maintenance worker for the killings.—
Sandra Dallas,
Denver Post,
19 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Right now, the rascal in him slumbers, briefly glimpsed now and again behind dark shades.—
Emma Madden,
Los Angeles Times,
25 Feb. 2026
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Of all the former rascals, Symoné has enjoyed the longest and most successful career in entertainment.—
Andrew Walsh,
Entertainment Weekly,
30 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Not for Gage Goncalves, who set this thing in motion with a monster goal in overtime in the Lightning’s 1-0 Game 6 victory at the Bell Centre.—
John Romano,
The Orlando Sentinel,
2 May 2026
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The titular monsters in this anthology series tend to do well at the Emmys (Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer and Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez were both nominated).—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
2 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Scamp.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/scamp. Accessed 5 May. 2026.
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