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crumb

crumb

99 1.0
A very small piece of bread, cake, or other baked food
  • noun
  • /krʌm/
: miga
  • There were small crumbs on the floor after the cake party.
  • bread crumbs

You're creating trails, you know, bread crumbs and you're leaving blank spots.

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Examples

  • You just want to stir everything so that the crumbs are completely coated in butter.

  • I followed the bread crumbs.

  • He ate every crumb of it.

  • And you are allowed to keep those crumbs.

  • You start to follow the trail of bread crumbs that they are leaving for you.

  • But you can buy bread crumbs in the shops as well.

  • Hey, you got crumbs in your beard.

  • Everyone stood back while he threw bread crumbs onto the water.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • There are crumbs under the refrigerator, crumbs on the counter.

  • Art reached over and brushed some flaky crumbs off my sweater.

    Fiction book (1990)

Synonyms

sliver
vscrumb
49 3.9

A very thin small piece cut or broken from something like wood

is a very small fragment of baked food, not necessarily thin or sliced
breadcrumb
vscrumb
11 2.4

Small pieces of dry bread that you put on food before cooking

is a simple fresh fragment, not a processed or dried ingredient
crumble
vscrumb
10 2.3

A small piece that breaks off from bread or cake

is specific to tiny fragments of bread or cake rather than any broken item
crum
vscrumb
  • Archaic
1 9.9

A small piece of bread or food

is the common modern word rather than the old regional form

Compounds

5 2.0

A sweet cake with a thick crumbly topping often eaten with coffee

crumb snatcher
  • Informal
1 8.7

A person or animal who quietly takes leftover food

A person or machine that grinds bread into small pieces for cooking

How Small

dust
615 1.0
speck
70 1.3
crumb
99 1.0
slice
233 1.0
piece
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

crumb singular
crumbs plural

Etymology

Crumb comes from an old English word meaning 'small broken piece' and is the same root as crumble, so you can picture a tiny bit of bread or cake.