scrimp
/skɹɪmp/
"scrimp" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scrimp” is uncommon English (frequency #96,455 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #96,455
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A pinching miser; a niggard.
Corpus desk
Index EN-scrimp · scrimp · English
scrimp · rank #96,455 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #96,455
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH scow
Nearest frequency peer: scow (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “scrimp”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Scio
Scio
3,548 corpus weight
- scow
scow
3,547 corpus weight
- scrimp
scrimp
3,546 corpus weight
- scrutinising
scrutinising
3,545 corpus weight
- scupper
scupper
3,543 corpus weight
- seba
seba
3,540 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “scrimp” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| 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) |
Long-tail rank of “scrimp” in English
Rare enough to double-check
scrimp is uncommon English at frequency #96,455 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /skɹɪmp/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "scrimp", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).