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crumb: crumb: [OE] Relatives of crumb are fairly widespread in the Germanic languages – German has krume, for example, and Dutch kruim – and it is represented in some non- Germanic Indo-European languages, such as Greek grūméā and even Albanian grime. As these forms indicate, the b is not original (the Old English word was cruma); it first appeared in the 16th century, but crum remained an accepted spelling well into the 19th century. The derivative crumble appeared in the 16th century.
=> crumble
crumhorn: crumhorn: see cram
crumpet: crumpet: [17] An isolated late 14th-century instance of the phrase crompid cake suggests that etymologically a crumpet may be literally a ‘curled-up’ cake, crompid perhaps being related to Old English crumb ‘crooked’. This was one of a wide range of closely related words descended from the Germanic base *kram- or *krem-, denoting ‘pressure’ (see CRAM). The colloquial application of the word to ‘women considered as sexually desirable’ seems to date from the 1930s.
=> cram
scrummage: scrummage: see skirmish
crumb (n.): Old English cruma "crumb, fragment," from a West Germanic root of obscure origin (compare Middle Dutch crume, Dutch kruim, German krume). The -b- appeared mid-15c., in part by analogy with words like dumb, in part perhaps reinforced by crumble. Slang meaning "lousy person" is 1918, from crumb, U.S. slang for "body-louse" (1863), so called from resemblance.
crumble (v.): late 15c., kremelen, from Old English *crymelan, presumed frequentative of gecrymman "to break into crumbs," from cruma (see crumb). The -b- is 16c., probably on analogy of French-derived words like humble, where it belongs, or by influence of crumb. Related: Crumbled; crumbling.
crumby (adj.): 1731, "full of crumbs," from crumb + -y (2). Overlapping somewhat with crummy, but generally restricted to the more literal senses.
crummy (adj.): 1560s, "easily crumbled;" 1570s, "like bread," from crumb + -y (2). The second sense probably accounts for 18c. (and later in dialects) use, of a woman, "attractively plump, full-figured, buxom." Slang meaning "shoddy, filthy, inferior, poorly made" in use by 1859, probably is from the first sense, but influenced by crumb in its slang sense of "louse."
crumpet (n.): 1690s, perhaps from crompid cake "wafer," literally "curled-up cake" (1382; Wyclif's rendering of Hebrew raqiq in Ex. 29:23), from crompid, past participle of crumpen "curl up." Alternative etymology is from Celtic (compare Breton krampoez "thin, flat cake"). Slang meaning "woman regarded as a sex object" is first recorded 1936.
crumple (v.): c. 1300, crumplen, frequentative of crumpen "to curl up" (from Old English crump "bent, crooked"). Related: Crumpled; crumpling.
fulcrum (n.): in mechanics, "a prop, a support" (on which a lever turns), 1670s, from Latin fulcrum "bedpost, foot of a couch," from fulcire "to prop up, support" (see balk (n.)).
sacrum (n.): bone at the base of the spine, 1753, from Late Latin os sacrum "sacred bone," from Latin os "bone" (see osseous) + sacrum, neuter of sacer "sacred" (see sacred). Said to be so called because the bone was the part of animals that was offered in sacrifices. Translation of Greek hieron osteon. Greek hieros also can mean "strong," and some sources suggest the Latin is a mistranslation of Galen, who was calling it "the strong bone."
scrum (n.): 1888, abbreviation of scrummage, a variant form of scrimmage (n.). Transferred sense of "noisy throng" is from 1950.
scrumptious (adj.): 1833, in countrified humor writing of "Major Jack Downing" of Maine (Seba Smith); probably a colloquial alteration of sumptuous. Originally "stylish, splendid;" sense of "delicious" is by 1881. Related: Scrumptiously; scrumptiousness.
simulacrum (n.): 1590s, from Latin simulacrum "likeness, image, form, representation, portrait," dissimilated from *simulaclom, from simulare "to make like, imitate, copy, represent" (see simulation). The word was borrowed earlier as semulacre (late 14c.), via Old French simulacre.
crumbs: "Used to express dismay or surprise", Late 19th century: euphemism for Christ.
ambulacrum: "(In an echinoderm) each of the radially arranged bands, together with their underlying structures, through which the double rows of tube feet protrude", Early 19th century: Latin, 'avenue', from ambulare 'to walk'.