scrimp
/skɹɪmp/
"scrimp" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scrimp” is an uncommon English word, ranked #96,455 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #96,455
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A pinching miser; a niggard.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | scrimp |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skɹɪmp/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #96,455 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “scrimp” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for scrimp is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skɹɪmp/. Corpus data places it at rank #96,455 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A pinching miser; a niggard.".
scrimp doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Scots scrimp (“meager”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrimpen (“to shrivel up, wrinkle”), from Old Dutch *scrimpan, from Frankish *skrimpan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrink”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut… The correct English form is scrimp, spelled S-C-R-I-M-P.
Definition
- 1A pinching miser; a niggard.
Etymology
From Scots scrimp (“meager”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrimpen (“to shrivel up, wrinkle”), from Old Dutch *scrimpan, from Frankish *skrimpan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrink”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”), related to Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and sċrincan (“to shrivel up”). Doublet of shrink, shrimp, and shrim.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “scrimp”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-C-R-I-M-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skɹɪmp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.