Crumpet

Also 7 -it. [Not known till late in 17th c.; Wyclif has however crompid cake as a rendering of laganum, which may be the antecedent of the name:

1382.  Wyclif, Ex. xxix. 23. A cake of a loof, a crusted cake spreynde with oyle, a crompid cake, of the leepe of therf looues [1388 a tender cake of o loof, spreynde with oile, paast sodun in watir and after fried in oile, of the panyer of therf looues; Vulgate tortamque panis unius, crustulam conspersam oleo; laganum de canistro azymorum].

  Crumpid here app. means ‘curled up, bent into a curve’ (see CRUMP v.¹, CRUMPED) as is usual with thin cakes baked on a griddle or iron plate; cf. CRULLER. The crumpet is not necessarily the same now as when it was first so called.]

  † 1.  A thin griddle cake: in quots. made of buckwheat meal. Obs.

1694.  Westmacott, Script. Herb. (1695), 220. They make Cakes of it [Buck Wheat] … as they do Oat-cakes, and call it Crumpit.

1830.  Withering’s Brit. Plants (ed. 7), II. 449, footn., it [buck-wheat meal] … is made into thin cakes in Shropshire and other parts of England, called crumpits.

  [Not in Miss Jackson’s Shropshire Word-bk., 1879.]

  2.  A soft cake made of flour, beaten egg, milk, and barm or baking-powder, mixed into batter, and baked on an iron plate. (Royal Baker, 1890.)

1769.  Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 279. To make Tea Crumpets. Beat two eggs very well, put to them a quart of warm milk and water, and a large spoonful of barm; beat in as much fine flour as will make them rather thicker than a common batter.

1827.  Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1353. The basket and bell pass your house with muffins and crumpets.

1855.  Trollope, Warden, viii. There was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets.

  attrib.  1825.  Hood, Ode to Gt. Unknown. This is dimpled, Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled.

  3.  dial. = CRUMPLING sb. 2, CRUMPY sb.