Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of two diving ducks (Aythya marila or A. affinis) of the Northern Hemisphere, the male of which has gray, black, and white plumage.
  • noun A small diving duck (Aythya novaeseelandiae) of New Zealand, having dark plumage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A Scotch form of scalp.
  • noun A duck, Fuligula or Fulix marila and related species.

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

  • noun Scot. A bed or stratum of shellfish; scalp.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A scaup duck. See below.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any one of several species of northern ducks of the genus Aythya, or Fuligula. The adult males are, in large part, black. The three North American species are: the greater scaup duck (Aythya marila, var. nearctica), called also broadbill, bluebill, blackhead, flock duck, flocking fowl, and raft duck; the lesser scaup duck (A. affinis), called also little bluebill, river broadbill, and shuffler; the tufted, or ring-necked, scaup duck (A. collaris), called also black jack, ringneck, ringbill, ringbill shuffler, etc. See Illust. of Ring-necked duck, under Ring-necked. The common European scaup, or mussel, duck (A. marila), closely resembles the American variety.

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

  • noun Any of three species of small diving duck in the genus Aythya.
  • noun Scotland Alternative form of scalp; a bed or stratum of shellfish.

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

  • noun diving ducks of North America having a bluish-grey bill

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for scaup-duck, perhaps from Scots scalp, scaup, bed of mussels (from its feeding on shellfish).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See scalp ("a bed of oysters or mussels").

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Examples

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  • What is the scaup? (ducks primigeniall advantage?)

    March 17, 2012