1
as in monkey
an appealingly mischievous person
those little scamps are always getting into trouble, but no one has the heart to punish them
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in villain
a mean, evil, or unprincipled person
an insincere and ruthlessly ambitious scamp who was willing to do anything to win the reality show's grand prize
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to botch
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of scamp
Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 6 Aug. 2025
Krypto is, above all, a little scamp, a characterization that Gunn leans on as Krypto playfully roughhouses with Supes in his new film.
—Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 11 July 2025
Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021
Sunshine scamps: The Florida Project is a delighful, poignant, dark-and-light movie about kids living on the seedy side of Disney.
—Rebecca Onion, Slate Magazine, 6 Oct. 2017
See All Example Sentences for scamp
Noun
Season 2 brings viewers back to Nevermore Academy, the gothic high school for supernatural scamps that Wednesday enrolled in last time around, and subsequently helped save from Season 1 villains Tyler (Hunter Doohan) and Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci, a one-time Wednesday herself).
—Verb
While its individual characters feel largely interchangeable, the movie hums with life and pleasure when Borowczyk lets his nuns twirl around the chapel in a painterly tableau and scamp through the convent.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for scamp
Noun
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On Monday, the Prairie Village City Council voted to adopt a conditional license for Oakley Reign — a spider monkey that’s recently been ushered into the spotlight as the northeast Johnson County city considered changing its definition of dangerous wild animals to include all monkeys.—
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Spot striking tropical flowers, colorful birds, and perhaps even a monkey in the forest canopy around the cascades.—
Noun
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Sorkin finds no heroes but also no villains.—
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But what Ole Miss has had to deal with is beyond the norm, with Kiffin in the villain’s role.—
Verb
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The most minor miscalculation can botch a landing.—
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Sure enough, Rico Dowdle slipped (again), botched the pitchback (which Bryce Young tried to pick up rather than immediately dive on, unfortunately channeling Cam Newton in the Super Bowl) and the Bucs recovered.—
Noun
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Nobody wants to deal with our old devil, even if the new one comes with an encroaching open threat actively bubbling in the Caribbean and Latin America at large.—
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But Bourdain, with his devil-be-damned demeanor, somehow makes the dish feel approachable — even though the two chefs’ recipes are pretty similar.—
Noun
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For much of his career, Skarsgård has gravitated toward characters who weaponize physical presence — Vikings, tech titans and mythic brutes whose power is immediately legible.—
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As usual, Lang plays the brute’s Heart of Darkness–esque descent into madness with gleeful relish.—
Verb
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The last time the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement resulted in the 2012 debacle with replacement referees, where multiple late-game decisions were bungled due to the inexperience of the substitutes.—
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At that point, the day had been characterized by sloppiness and frustration, with Bears pass catchers failing to secure at least a half-dozen catchable throws from their quarterback and, on three occasions, bungling fourth-down opportunities.—
Noun
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In a time when unemployment is on the rise and the rich are running amok and wreaking havoc on the poor — and the social services in place to support them — who doesn’t love the idea of rogue rascals sticking it to a bougie institution by running off with its crown jewels?—
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The hilarious hijinks that ensue are centered on a rugby-playing rascal whose initial interests in pulling chicks and working get-rich-quick schemes give way to a lifelong love of writing poetry in the post-Soviet-occupation era of the 1990s.—
Noun
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In it, Oldham costumes up as a shaggy woodland monster, which—after a more nimble inhabitant seemingly swaps into the outfit—proceeds to engage a human in an elaborate dance routine.—
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That mentality has fueled a monster debut season for Porter County Conference leader Kouts (12-3, 4-1).—
Cite this Entry
“Scamp.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/scamp. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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