scoop

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

• noun A shovellike utensil, usually having a deep curved dish and a short handle.
• noun A thick-handled cuplike utensil for dispensing balls of ice cream or other semisoft food, often having a sweeping band in the cup that is levered by the thumb to free the contents.
• noun A ladle; a dipper.
• noun An implement for bailing water from a boat.
• noun A narrow, spoon-shaped instrument for surgical extraction in cavities or cysts.
• noun A bucket or shovel of a dredge, backhoe, or other digging machine.
• noun The amount that any of these utensils, implements, or containers can hold.
• noun A scooping movement or action.
• noun An exclusive news story acquired by luck or initiative before a competitor.
• noun Current information or details.
• noun A rounded, usually low-cut neckline, as on a blouse or dress.
• noun A hollow area; a cavity.
• noun An opening, as on the body of a motor vehicle, by which a fluid is directed inward.
• transitive verb To take up and often reposition with a scoop.
• transitive verb To hollow out by digging.
• transitive verb To pick up, gather, or collect swiftly and smoothly.
• transitive verb Informal To top or outmaneuver (a competitor) in acquiring and publishing an important news story.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A utensil like a shovel, but having a short handle and a deep hollow receptacle capable of holding various small articles.
• noun Hence A coal-scuttle.
• noun A basin-like cavity, natural or artificial; a hollow.
• noun An instrument used in hollowing out anything, or in removing something out of a hollow or so as to leave a hollow: as, a cheese-scoop.
• noun The vizor or peak of a cap.
• noun A big haul, as if in a scoop-net; in particular, a big haul of money made in speculation or in some similar way.
• noun The act of scooping; a movement analogous to the act of scooping.
• noun The securing and publishing by a newspaper of a piece of news in advance of its rivals; a “beat,” especially a “beat” of unusual success or importance.
• To take with or as with a scoop or a scoop-net: generally with out, up, or in: as, to scoop up water.
• Figuratively, to gather up as if with a scoop; hence, to gain by force or fraud.
• To empty as with a scoop or by lading; hence, to hollow out; excavate: commonly with out.
• To form by hollowing out as with a scoop.
• To take with a dredge, as oysters; dredge.
• In newspaper slang, to get the better of (a rival or rivals) by securing and publishing a piece of news in advance of it or them; get a “beat” on. See scoop, n., 8.
• To use a scoop; dredge, as for oysters.
• To feed; take food, as the right or whalebone whale. See scooping, n.

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

• transitive verb to report a story first, before (a rival); to get a scoop, or a beat, on (a rival); -- used commonly in the passive. Also used in certain situations in scientific research, when one scientist or team of scientists reports their results before another who is working on the same problem.
• transitive verb To take out or up with, a scoop; to lade out.
• transitive verb To empty by lading.
• transitive verb To make hollow, as a scoop or dish; to excavate; to dig out; to form by digging or excavation.
• noun A large ladle; a vessel with a long handle, used for dipping liquids; a utensil for bailing boats.
• noun A deep shovel, or any similar implement for digging out and dipping or shoveling up anything.
• noun (Surg.) A spoon-shaped instrument, used in extracting certain substances or foreign bodies.
• noun A place hollowed out; a basinlike cavity; a hollow.
• noun A sweep; a stroke; a swoop.
• noun The act of scooping, or taking with a scoop or ladle; a motion with a scoop, as in dipping or shoveling.
• noun a quantity sufficient to fill a scoop; -- used especially for ice cream, dispensed with an ice cream scoop.
• noun Newspaper or laboratory cant an act of reporting (news, research results) before a rival; also called a beat.
• noun informal news or information.
• noun a kind of hand net, used in fishing; also, a net for sweeping the bottom of a river.
• noun a wheel for raising water, having scoops or buckets attached to its circumference; a tympanum.