Scalp

How to spell scalp

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce scalp

What does scalp mean?

1. nounThe skin covering the top and back of the human head, from which hair grows.
2. verbTo buy tickets and resell them at a higher, often inflated, price.

Scalp in a sentence

• noun

  The new shampoo soothed his dry, itchy scalp.

• verb

  Touts often scalp tickets outside the stadium for double their face value.

• noun

  A good haircut should not leave the scalp feeling tender.

• verb

  It is illegal in some states to scalp concert tickets near the venue.

Where does scalp come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Scalp first appears in Middle English around the 1300s, originally meaning the top of the head or the skull itself. Its deeper origins are uncertain, but it is widely linked to a Scandinavian source: Old Norse had skalpr, meaning a sheath or pod, and the same family gives us words for shell-like or covering objects. The underlying idea seems to be of an outer casing, which fits the sense of skin stretched over the dome of the skull. The grisly sense of a piece of skin and hair taken as a trophy of war developed in English during the 1600s. The modern slang verb meaning to resell tickets at a profit is a much later American development from the 1800s, picturing the reseller taking a quick cut, just as one might lift a thin layer from the surface.

How the word is built

• scalp (single root; the skin of the head), no affixes