Removed the scalp or top skin from someone's head as a trophy; also means to buy and resell tickets at inflated prices.
From 'scalp,' possibly from Scandinavian languages, related to scraping. Scalping was practiced by various cultures, not just Indigenous peoples as stereotypes suggest. The ticket-selling meaning is 20th-century slang.
The practice of scalping for trophies was far more widespread across human cultures than commonly known—Cossacks, Norse, and European peoples all did it—yet it became associated with one group in American history due to biased narratives.
Gendered colonial narrative: Indigenous women were depicted as targets in scalp-bounty imagery more than men, encoding gender vulnerability into frontier rhetoric.
Use only in historical or anatomical context; avoid metaphorically in competitive contexts.
["outmaneuvered","undercut","defeated"]
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.