Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An instrument of surgery, used in scraping foul and carious bones; a raspatory.
  • noun A heavy, compressed leather boot shaped to cover the forward portion of the cornet.
  • noun In lumbering. See rosser.
  • noun One who scalps, or takes a scalp.
  • noun In milling, a machine or apparatus for scalping.
  • noun One who sells at less than official or recognized rates; specifically, a dealer in railway and other tickets who shares his commission with his customer, or who purchases unused tickets and coupons at cheap rates, and sells them at a slight advance, but for less than the official price; a ticket-broker.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who, or that which, scalps.
  • noun (Surg.) Same as Scalping iron, under Scalping.
  • noun Cant A broker who, dealing on his own account, tries to get a small and quick profit from slight fluctuations of the market.
  • noun Cant A person who buys and sells the unused parts of railroad tickets.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US One who scalps tickets to popular entertainment events: buying them in advance and then selling them (e.g. online or just outside the venue of the event), often at inflated prices
  • noun finance A person on an open outcry exchange trading floor who buys and sells rapidly for his or her own account, aiming to buy from a seller and a little later sell to a buyer, making a small profit from the difference (roughly the amount of the bid/offer spread, or less).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who buys something and resells it at a price far above the initial cost

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word scalper.

Examples

  • But the greatest new addition has been the introduction of a short term scalper strategy that works on 4 currency pairs.

    unknown title 2009

  • Plus, it's the hottest ticket in town, but getting a ticket to the Obama inauguration from a scalper could be a federal crime.

    CNN Transcript Nov 10, 2008 2008

  • As more seats go to season-ticket holders, big-business and special-interest groups, Somebody Real Important has become the ticket broker (or, watch your mouth, "scalper"), the one who frees up the precious booty and gets it into circulation pronto.

    Scalper Schmalper 2008

  • A blade or "scalper" removes a strip of surface soil to clear away weed growth.

    Chapter 21 1990

  • There is no reason to fear someone called a "scalper" at a Laker game.

    lex icon 2009

  • (Something I might have done, too, back at the ticket line, when the mama-scalper had offered us the discounted ticket.)

    French Word-A-Day: 2009

  • A few more children were in tow of the bikinied scalper, who explained that her friend hadn't shown up and now she was stuck with an extra ticket.

    French Word-A-Day: 2009

  • The psst-hey-buddy guy may not be the image the new "ticket broker" industry wishes to be associated with—and, goodness knows, one needs to make sure the curbside tickets are legit—but maybe these days dealing with the low-tech scalper is one's best hope of not getting scalped.

    Don't Blame a Scalper When You Think You've Been Fleeced Eric Felten 2011

  • How effective is the Burgess proposal - almost all elements of it result in subjective determination: abusive language; so the ticket scalper who asks me three times in a loud voice for my extra; does that fall under the abusive part of the ordinance.

    “No Matter How Many Moats You Have.” « PubliCola 2010

  • As we approached the ticket line, we were met by an unusual scalper: a woman, in a bikini, carrying a toddler on her hip.

    French Word-A-Day: 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.