Yep that's what I use! The "leftovers"!

IMO, I make 2 types of scrap quilts. Both are using left over fabric. The 1st is using scraps from my scraps, not paying too much attention to placement. The 2nd type is a controlled scrappy where I pick certain colors from my scraps to make a quilt. My scraps are either scrapes I have from my previous projects, or scraps I have either swapped to get or someone has given me. I consider my scraps different from my stash. My stash is new fabric I have bought but not used yet. So I would not consider a quilt using my stash as a scrappy quilt, even though it looks scrappy.

Good point...the cost of the "scraps" was the same as the intentionally purchased fabric.

Scrappy means a large variety of fabrics to me. They do not need to be random. I am currently making a scrappy quilt focusing on three main colors chosen to go with a border fabric. I am using about fifty different fabrics. In the past, I would have chosen just 3-4 coordinating fabrics. I love the shades and textures that you get by using a variety of fabrics.

A sampler plate sounds like lunch to me.

I use the ones that seem to multiply on their own over night. They produce the most varied patterns.

just me.. but I made a quilt recently that I wanted to look scrappy. SO I bought 10 different fabrics that I knew worked well together. I think of that as a version of a "controlled scrappy"

I am now cutting fabric from left over fabric into 2-1/2" squares. They are all different and don't necessarily go together. That is what I think of scappy

I have a bit of a problem with the word "scrap" -
to me, that is what goes in the wastebasket or to recycling.

How about these other words?

oddments
remnants
bits and pieces
snippets
odd-shaped precuts? (That one is a stretch!) As far as I know - many precuts are cut again into different sizes or shapes - or even made to be the same size.

It's my observation that these so-called "scrappy" quilts are the product of people who have excess money to spend so buy yardage as if it grew on trees and/or lack the math skills to precisely calculate the need for a given design, and either overbuy or underbuy to such an extent that they have unpredictable quantities of fabric.

In my youth, the scrap bag truly was the scraps -- well worn odd bits which were used again to create functional but not artistic homegoods. Every inch of a new bolt was conserved and when we cut, it was with a thought to the most economical method possible.

I do find some of the new "scrap" quilts visually pleasing, though I can't imagine the waste!

Paper Princess, I love your sense of humor!

Another thing that I thought of after I had originally posted was the part of speech that both words are. Scrappy is an adjective, meaning that it describes the type of quilt; scrap is a noun which means that it is a thing ( fabric remnant). Just one more thing to think about.