▪ I. scamp, n.
(skæmp)
Also 9 Sc. skemp.
[f. scamp v.1]
1. A highway robber. arch.
| 1782 Messink Choice of Harlequin (Farmer), Ye scamps, ye pads, ye divers. 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Scamp, a highwayman; royal scamp, a highwayman who robs civilly; royal foot scamp, footpads who behave in like manner. 1809 G. Andrewes Dict. Slang, Scamp-foot, a street robber, a foot pad, spicer. 1834 H. Ainsworth Rookwood iii. v, A rank scamp! |
† b. Highway robbery. Obs.
| 1786 Life Miss Davies 11 He resolved to go upon the scamp. 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict. s.v., The game of highway robbery is called the scamp... Done for a scamp signifies convicted of a highway robbery. |
2. A good-for-nothing, worthless person, a ne'er-do-well, ‘waster’; a rascal. Also playfully as a mild term of reproof.
| α 1808 Jamieson, Scamp, a cheat, a swindler; often used as to one who contracts debt, and runs off without paying it, Loth., Perths. 1825 Brockett N.C. Gloss., Scamp, a mean rascal, a fellow devoid of honour and principle. 1833 Marryat P. Simple xxix, He was a sad scamp. 1837 Dickens Pickw. xlvii, Those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do with. 1844 Lockhart Let. 13 May in Life & Lett. (1897) II. 199 Ben Disraeli, the Jew scamp, has published a very blackguard novel. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Libr. (1892) II. vi. 181 The prodigal who has been with scamps in gambling-houses. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic 133 This scamp Voltaire! |
| β 1818 Hogg Brownie of Bodsbeck I. 110 Ye're surely some silly skemp of a fallow, to draw out your sword on a puir auld woman. 1824–7 Moir Mansie Wauch xxii. (1828) 339 Skemps that had not wherewithal to pay lawful debts. |
3. U.S. (See quots.)
| 1882 Jordan & Gilbert Synopsis Fishes N. Amer. 538 Trisotropis falcatus Poey.—Scamp. 1884 G. B. Goode, etc. Nat. Hist. Aquatic Anim. 413 Another fish..Mycteroperca falcata, is called at Pensacola by the name ‘Scamp’. |
▪ II. scamp, v.1
(skæmp)
[app. cogn. with scamper v., which occurs earlier. An earlier evidence of the word may exist in the mock-heraldic scampant (c 1585).]
intr. † a. Cant. (See quot. 1753.) b. Sc. With advs. about, off. (See quot. 1867.)
| 1753 Disc. John Poulter (ed. 2) 39 I'll scamp on the Panney; [= ] I'll go on the Highway. 1867 Gregor Banffsh. Gloss., Scamp, to go about in an idle manner; often with the idea of mischief; followed by aboot and through. |
▪ III. scamp, v.2
(skæmp)
[Prob. of dialectal origin; cf. skimp v., used dial. in the same sense; the source may possibly be ON. skemma to shorten, f. skamm-r short: see scant a.]
1. trans. To do (work, a task, etc.) negligently or hurriedly. Also to scamp off, scamp over. Cf. skimp v.
| 1837 Whittock Bk. Trades (1842) 392 (Printer) The best work which cannot be ‘scamped’ over. 1861 Smiles Engineers I. 11 From the very earliest times the tendency to ‘scamp’ work seems to have existed. 1867 G. M. Musgrave Nooks in Old France I. ii. 80 A perilous mode of scamping off their work. 1888 W. P. Frith Autobiog. III. v. 112 A portrait, in which..the man's figure had been what we call ‘scamped’. |
| absol. 1859 Smiles Self-Help viii. 211 There are tradesmen who adulterate, contractors who ‘scamp’ [etc.]. |
2. U.S. intr. (in quot. quasi-trans.). To be stingy or excessively economical. Cf. skimp v.
| 1894 C. Meriwether in Nation 16 Aug. 116/2 If three or four dollars more are added for rent, the tenant either scamps the life out of himself and family, or crops the land to death. |
3. Comb.: scamp-work, scamped work.
| 1840 Marryat Olla Podr. xxviii, To use a joiner's phrase, everything abroad is comparatively scamp-work. 1884 E. H. Plumptre in Expositor Apr. 275 What we call ‘scamp-work’ in building was as common..in Ezekiel's time, as it is with us. |
Hence scamped ppl. a.
| 1871 Carlyle in Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 198 The house was..misbuilt..a despicable, cockney, scamped edifice. 1885 J. G. Wood My Garden Wall in Longm. Mag. VI. 518 This one little bit of ‘scamped’ brickwork is almost the only part that is worth watching. |