Green’s Dictionary of Slang

crumpet n.

[the supposedly similar shapes]

1. the head; usu. in phrs. below .

[Aus]‘G.G.’ Sporting Sketches in Sportsman (Melbourne) (18/10/1898) 5/7: ‘I taps a bloke rather ’ard-like [...] on ’is perishin’ crumpet’.
[UK]B. Pain De Omnibus 111: You set still and cool your crumpet.
[Aus]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!
[Aus]S. Gore Holy Smoke 56: When I was down there with the weeds wrapped around me crumpet?

2. (Aus.) the buttocks.

[Aus]E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 197: They [...] end by pitchin’ themselves head-over-crumpet down ther lift-well.
[Aus]F.J. Hardy 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.

[UK]J. Curtis Gilt Kid 75: Fancy staying up as late as this and not having no crumpet.
[UK]M. Harrison Reported Safe Arrival 94: Not a bad-lookin’ bitter crumpet, but as old as Adam.
[UK]W. Hall 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.
[UK]J. Orton Loot Act I: We’ll go to a smashing brothel I’ve just discovered. Run by a woman [...] Nice line in crumpet she has.
[Ire]T. Murphy Morning After Optimism in Plays: 3 (1994) Scene v: When I’m chatting up crumpet.
[UK](con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 13: Valerie was Nelson’s bit of crumpet.
[Ire]J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 49: Where, for instance, is the choice piece of crumpet ‘O’ told me you were bringing?
[UK]A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ Minder [TV script] 56: I reckon my crumpet-pulling days are over.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 140: If there’s a bit of crumpet available you’ll be in that too, eh?
[Aus]R.G. Barrett 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’.
[UK]N. Cohn Yes We Have No 39: I [...] help myself to a bit of A-1 crumpet.
[UK]T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 87: An hour ago I was up to my oysters in posh crumpet.
[Aus]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.

[Ire](con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 348: You don’t think they’re ’aving a bit of crumpet still?
[UK]‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 148: Bang goes my bit of crumpet for the cruise.
[UK]A. Sillitoe Birthday 36: Brian was getting plenty of crumpet.
[UK]D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 116: Should’ve sticked around [...] Might’ve seen a bit o’ crump.
[Scot](con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 170: Come round tonight for some tea . . . and crumpet?

(c) (US gay) an anal virgin.

[US] (ref. to mid-1960s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 21: anal virgin [...] crumpet (kwn LA, mid ’60s).

(d) the vagina; also in pl.

[WI]Max Romeo ‘Wet Dream’ 🎵 Give the crumpet to Big Foot Joe, leave the fanny to me.
[US](con. c.1970) S. Coonts Flight of the Intruder 142: Did you get into her crumpets? Huh?
[Aus]R.G. Barrett 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.
[US]D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in 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.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Les nodded to Blythe’s crumpet poking out under her pleated dress. ‘That looks good enough to eat’.
[US]J. McCourt ‘Vilja de Tanquay Exults’ in Queer Street 310: I don’t give / A harlot’s crumpet.

(e) men viewed as no more than sources of sexual pleasure.

[UK]K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 30: You’re sleeping with Alexander Drake, the Thinking Woman’s Crumpet.
[UK]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.

[Scot]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.
[UK]Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 15: I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see you?
[UK]Wodehouse [title] Eggs, Beans and Crumpets.
[UK]Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 95: Listen, old crumpet.

5. (Aus.) a weakling, a fool [the ‘softness’ of the comestible].

[Aus]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.
[Aus]L. Glassop We Were the Rats 113: A man’s just a crumpet.
[UK]Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 248: ‘Rats, you crumpet,’ sa gillibrand.

In compounds

In phrases

barmy on the crumpet (adj.) (also balmy in the crumpet)

mad, eccentric.

[UK]W.S. Maugham Liza of Lambeth (1966) 87: You’re all barmy on the crumpet.
[UK]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.
[US]K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xi: The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry.
[UK]Marvel 3 Mar. 10: He’s barmy on the crumpet.
[UK]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.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 342: balmy in the crumpet, bats in the belfry.
bow the crumpet (v.)

(Aus.) to plead guilty.

[Aus]S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/2: ‘Bow the crumpet,’ ‘nod the nut,’ ‘duck the scone,’ all meaning to plead guilty.
[Aus] Baker Drum.
off one’s crumpet (adj.)

mad, eccentric.

[UK] ‘’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.
[UK]Taunton Courier 12 Sept. 3/1: He had been worried off his crumpet all day, making arrangements on her behalf.
[UK]R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 606: It seems to me as if he’s gorn orf ’is bloody crumpet.
[UK]Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 145: Poor old Biffy’s only gone off his crumpet.
[UK]Yorks. Eve. Post 10 Mar. 8/5: He denies [...] that he is off his crumpet.
[Aus]N. Lindsay Age Of Consent 210: You’re dotty, balmy, absolutely off your crumpet.
[UK]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

crumpet-face (n.) [similarity to the pocked surface of a crumpet]

a face that is covered with smallpox marks.

[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
crumpet-scramble (n.)

a tea party.

[UK]Derby Day 16: There are men who do not disdain muffin-worries and crumpet-scrambles.

In phrases

not worth a crumpet (adj.)

(Aus.) worthless, useless.

[Aus]L. Glassop 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.
[Aus]A. Seymour One Day of the Year (1977) II iii: Anzacs (Shakes his head.) Ballyhoo. Photos in the papers. Famous. Not worth a crumpet.
[Aus]F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 189: Those things are not worth a crumpet.
[Aus]A. Chipper 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.
[Aus]R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 38: Not worth a [...] crumpet: Worthless.
[Aus]Canberra Times (ACT) 3 Aug. 5/6: The alleged guidelines tabled by the Premier were not worth a ‘cold crumpet’.