Scamp
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A rascal, swindler, or rogue; a ne'er-do-well.
""He is a scamp, he is and it isn't difficult to find his tracks and signs of his reckless shooting, for he can never wait, like other folks, till the birds have had a good start at their play.""
- 2 A preliminary design sketch.
"It did not matter that the scamp (simple illustrative line-drawing) it contained could have been done in the pub the night before."
- 3 one who is playfully mischievous wordnet
- 4 A mischievous person, especially a playful, impish youngster.
"My nephew is a little scamp who likes to leave lighted firecrackers under the lawnchairs of his dozing elders."
- 1 To skimp; to do something in a skimpy or slipshod fashion. dated
"1884, Samuel Smiles, Men of Invention and Industry His work was always first-rate. There was no scamping about it. Everything that he did was thoroughly good and honest."
- 2 perform hastily and carelessly wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Who's the scamp who broke the window?"
Etymology
From Middle Dutch schampen (“slip away”), from Old French escamper (“to run away, to make one's escape”), from Vulgar Latin *excampāre. Compare escape.
Perhaps related to sense 1, but influenced by the later attested skimp; however, compare Icelandic skamta (“to dole out, to stint”), which is related to skammur (“short”).
Related phrases
More for "scamp"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.