crumpet n.
1. the head; usu. in phrs. below .
Sporting Sketches in Sportsman (Melbourne) (18/10/1898) 5/7: ‘I taps a bloke rather ’ard-like [...] on ’is perishin’ crumpet’. | ||
De Omnibus 111: You set still and cool your crumpet. | ||
Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Jan. 4/8: The same ‘invalid’ hit a bottle-o man severely on the crumpet for daring to offer her a penny a-piece for dead marines! | ||
Holy Smoke 56: When I was down there with the weeds wrapped around me crumpet? |
2. (Aus.) the buttocks.
Fact’ry ’Ands 197: They [...] end by pitchin’ themselves head-over-crumpet down ther lift-well. | ||
Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 114: On your knees, Fanny baby, then I’ll go down on the old crumpet. |
3. in sexual contexts.
(a) women, esp. when viewed as no more than sources of sexual pleasure; thus get a crumpet, of a man, to have sexual intercourse.
Gilt Kid 75: Fancy staying up as late as this and not having no crumpet. | ||
Reported Safe Arrival 94: Not a bad-lookin’ bitter crumpet, but as old as Adam. | ||
Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: Posh hotel, made up to captain, fourteen day’s leave, smashing bit of crumpet, and the weather’s glorious. | ||
Loot Act I: We’ll go to a smashing brothel I’ve just discovered. Run by a woman [...] Nice line in crumpet she has. | ||
Plays: 3 (1994) Scene v: When I’m chatting up crumpet. | Morning After Optimism in||
(con. WWII) Soldier Erect 13: Valerie was Nelson’s bit of crumpet. | ||
Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 49: Where, for instance, is the choice piece of crumpet ‘O’ told me you were bringing? | ||
Minder [TV script] 56: I reckon my crumpet-pulling days are over. | ‘Senior Citizen Caine’||
You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 140: If there’s a bit of crumpet available you’ll be in that too, eh? | ||
Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] ‘I know your type. You’ve got a girl for every night of the week. Out you go. Lay on the charm. And there it is. All the crumpet you want’. | ||
Yes We Have No 39: I [...] help myself to a bit of A-1 crumpet. | ||
Kill Your Darlings 87: An hour ago I was up to my oysters in posh crumpet. | ||
Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 Dead set, the Bash has had more early hot showers than cold crumpet, mostly coming early too. |
(b) (also crump) sexual intercourse.
(con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 348: You don’t think they’re ’aving a bit of crumpet still? | ||
Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 148: Bang goes my bit of crumpet for the cruise. | ||
Birthday 36: Brian was getting plenty of crumpet. | ||
Black Swan Green 116: Should’ve sticked around [...] Might’ve seen a bit o’ crump. | ||
(con. 1980s) Skagboys 170: Come round tonight for some tea . . . and crumpet? |
(c) (US gay) an anal virgin.
(ref. to mid-1960s) Queens’ Vernacular 21: anal virgin [...] crumpet (kwn LA, mid ’60s). |
(d) the vagina; also in pl.
🎵 Give the crumpet to Big Foot Joe, leave the fanny to me. | ‘Wet Dream’||
(con. c.1970) Flight of the Intruder 142: Did you get into her crumpets? Huh? | ||
Real Thing 26: Black leather pants [that] fitted her so snugly round the crumpet she must have poked the edges in with the sharpened pencil. | ||
eye mag. 8 July 🌐 After he cleaned up the kitchen, he admired her crumpet and had some sugar bowl pie. Then he stuck his bald-headed hermit into her artichoke again. | ‘A dirty little story’ in||
Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Les nodded to Blythe’s crumpet poking out under her pleated dress. ‘That looks good enough to eat’. | ||
Queer Street 310: I don’t give / A harlot’s crumpet. | ‘Vilja de Tanquay Exults’ in
(e) men viewed as no more than sources of sexual pleasure.
Foetal Attraction (1994) 30: You’re sleeping with Alexander Drake, the Thinking Woman’s Crumpet. | ||
Indep. 21 June 3: I rudely asked whether she would be on the lookout for a bit of crumpet. |
4. a term of endearment; often as old crumpet.
Edinburgh Eve. News 1 Apr. 4/4: Elderly Party [...] I’m just recovering from a very severe attack of the same [illness] [...] so you will just suit. Cabby: Werry likely, old crumpet. | ||
Inimitable Jeeves 15: I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see you? | ||
[title] Eggs, Beans and Crumpets. | ||
Jeeves in the Offing 95: Listen, old crumpet. |
5. (Aus.) a weakling, a fool [the ‘softness’ of the comestible].
Truth (Sydney) 9 Dec. 7/3: I have heered them Christin crumpets / Yellin for the pubs to close; / Silly rot, it can’t be dun, sir. | ||
We Were the Rats 113: A man’s just a crumpet. | ||
Complete Molesworth (1985) 248: ‘Rats, you crumpet,’ sa gillibrand. |
In compounds
a womanizer.
Signs of Crime 180: Crumpet man A womanizer. |
In phrases
mad, eccentric.
Liza of Lambeth (1966) 87: You’re all barmy on the crumpet. | ||
Globe (London) 25 Nov. 1/4: T. C. E. corrects the phrase balmy in the crumpet. It should be, he declares convincingly, barmy on the crumpet —barmy being derived from the term barm, signifying yeast. [...] To be frothy in the head sounds quite as bad as having a spider in one’s ceiling. | ||
Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xi: The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry. | ||
Marvel 3 Mar. 10: He’s barmy on the crumpet. | ||
Sketch (London) 29 Dec. 30/3: ‘I’m not feeling meself. Am I barmy on the crumpet, or is that bloke...’. | ||
Nottingham Jrnl 24 Feb. 5/1: If ever [...] there was a man [...] barmy off his crumpet and chockful of the daftest ideas [etc]. | ||
Tewkesbury Register 14 June 3/6: Not to put too fine a point upon it, I consider he is barmy on the crumpet. | ||
Dict. of Invective (1991) 342: balmy in the crumpet, bats in the belfry. |
(Aus.) to plead guilty.
Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/2: ‘Bow the crumpet,’ ‘nod the nut,’ ‘duck the scone,’ all meaning to plead guilty. | in||
Drum. |
(Aus.) pock-marked.
Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Crumpet-faced - Pock-marked. |
mad, eccentric.
‘’Arry on African Affairs’ in Punch 22 Feb. 90/1: True the Rads and ’Ome Rulers are kiboshed, and clean off their crumpets with spite. | ||
Taunton Courier 12 Sept. 3/1: He had been worried off his crumpet all day, making arrangements on her behalf. | ||
Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 606: It seems to me as if he’s gorn orf ’is bloody crumpet. | ||
Carry on, Jeeves 145: Poor old Biffy’s only gone off his crumpet. | ||
Yorks. Eve. Post 10 Mar. 8/5: He denies [...] that he is off his crumpet. | ||
Age Of Consent 210: You’re dotty, balmy, absolutely off your crumpet. | ||
Dly Record 26 Mar. 8/6: This of course doesn’t worry Adolf [Hitler] who’s off his crumpet anyway. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
a face that is covered with smallpox marks.
Bucks Herald 21 May 5/3: The only person who grieves is the Jewish matron who imports Circassian pomades and eyebrow revivers, and makes the ugliest crumpet-face discoverable ‘beautiful for ever’. | ||
Ashton Wkly Reporter 1 Jan. 1/2: [advewrt] Every Evening until further notice, / grand burlesque pantomine / King Crumpet-Face and Demon Chump-Head. | ||
Sl. Dict. 135: Crumpet-face, a face pitted with small-pox marks. | ||
Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday 17 Nov. 363/3: I told old Crumpet-face — he were my pal — as no good wouldn’t come of it. | ||
Hull Dly Mail 28 Feb. 6/3: When one lady calls another lady a ‘Crumpet-faced thing’ it is taken as an ofence only to be washedout in blood. |
a tea party.
Derby Day 16: There are men who do not disdain muffin-worries and crumpet-scrambles. |
In phrases
(Aus.) worthless, useless.
We Were the Rats 153: He’s a bloody cissy. [...] Yous mark me words, he won’t be worth a crumpet in action, not worth a bloody crumpet. | ||
Inverell Times (NSW) 16 Mar. 6/7: It was just as well the first three did so well, for the rest were not worth a crumpet — five ducks, a six and [a] one. | ||
One Day of the Year (1977) II iii: Anzacs (Shakes his head.) Ballyhoo. Photos in the papers. Famous. Not worth a crumpet. | ||
Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 189: Those things are not worth a crumpet. | ||
Aussie Swearers Guide 44: If you wish to decribe something as worthless [...] not worth a mintie, not worth a crumpet and not worth a razoo. | ||
Dinkum Aussie Dict. 38: Not worth a [...] crumpet: Worthless. | ||
Canberra Times (ACT) 3 Aug. 5/6: The alleged guidelines tabled by the Premier were not worth a ‘cold crumpet’. |