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) sexual intercourse, thus 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]J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 93: Lumber as much crumpet as he fancied. See their clocks when they lamped the drum.
[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.
[Aus]A. Buzo Rooted in 3 Plays 90: ‘And the tarts! Christ, it’s rife up there in the country, mate. Crumpet for the taking’ .
[Ire]T. Murphy Morning After Optimism in Plays: 3 (1994) Scene v: When I’m chatting up crumpet.
[UK]A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ Minder [TV script] 56: I reckon my crumpet-pulling days are over.
[UK]F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 146: Wife’s done a runner and some topless crumpet is wrapping its legs round you.
[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]T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 87: An hour ago I was up to my oysters in posh crumpet.
[UK]A. Sillitoe Birthday 36: Brian was getting plenty of crumpet.
[Aus]Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 Dead set, the Bash has had more early hot showers than cold crumpet, mostly coming early too.
[Scot](con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 170: Come round tonight for some tea . . . and crumpet?

(b) 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.

(c) (US gay) an anal virgin.

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

(d) 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.
bit of crumpet (n.) (also bit of crump)

sexual intercourse, thus a girl or woman seen in a sexual context.

[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.
[Aus]B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 86: Best place in the West End for a bit of crumpet.
[UK](con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 13: Valerie was Nelson’s bit of crumpet.
[UK]‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 148: Bang goes my bit of crumpet for the cruise.
[Ire]J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 49: Where, for instance, is the choice piece of crumpet ‘O’ told me you were bringing?
[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?
[UK]N. Cohn Yes We Have No 39: I [...] help myself to a bit of A-1 crumpet.
[UK]D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 116: Should’ve sticked around [...] Might’ve seen a bit o’ crump.
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.
N. Lindsay Dust or Polish? 80: ‘If I don’t get down them stairs soon I’ll go off my crumpet’.

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’.