scrumptious

adjective

scrump·​tious ˈskrəm(p)-shəs 

informal

: delightful, excellent

"Whew! What a place! …" said Stalky, filling himself a pipe. "Isn't it scrumptious? …"

—Rudyard Kipling

She has curly red hair and big jolly brown eyes and scrumptious freckles.

—Lucy Maud Montgomery

[Liz] Robbins … has packed her book with scrumptious details.

—Benjamin Cheever

especially : delicious

We were offered such goodies as five styles of eggs, bacon, … and scrumptious pastries.

—Dick Bradley

This inviting farmstead and restaurant is known for its scrumptious apple dishes …

—Parenting

scrumptiously adverb

Standard menu fare includes scrumptiously fluffy eggplant clouds …

—Shira Feder

… a scrumptiously filthy guitar solo burning with taut tones.

—Randall Radic

scrumptiousness noun

… [the recipes] lack the extra touch, the extra effort to lift them to scrumptiousness.

—Cook's Magazine

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.

Synonyms

• delicious

Examples of scrumptious in a Sentence

baked a scrumptious chocolate cake

Recent Examples on the Web

Skip the banana sundae and go for either the chocolate chip brownie à la mode or the panna cotta—both scrumptious. —Steve Forbes, Forbes.com, 29 May 2025

The shrimp and grits ($36) are scrumptious, the sea scallops ($46) dandy. —Charles Babington, New York Times, 21 May 2025

While Lord Empanada in Monrovia carries a fair share of scrumptious offerings paired with their chimichurri sauce, taking a bite of their mushroom empanada was like receiving a hug. —Carolyn Burt, Oc Register, 29 May 2025

Travel back in time to a 16th-century medieval amusement park, Larkspur, filled with scrumptious roast turkey legs, invigorating stage shows, games, kids’ activities, and talented artisans. —Sarah Kuta, Denver Post, 14 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

perhaps alteration of sumptuous

First Known Use

1830, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

scrumptious

adjective

scrump·​tious ˈskrəm(p)-shəs 

informal

: delightful, excellent

especially : delicious

scrumptiously adverb