Scalper

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈskælpɚ/

Definitions

1. An individual who acquires tickets to events and resells them at higher prices to profit from demand is often described this way
2. A person who trades on financial markets, profiting from small fluctuations in asset prices, can be referred to by this term
3. Someone who buys event tickets intending to sell them later at a higher price to gain financially ; a market participant who executes rapid trades to exploit minor price shifts for profit

Etymology: Scalping in the financial sense is a plain extension of an older American meaning. "Scalp" first meant the skin of the head taken as a trophy, and later came to mean the act of profiting from a quick buy and sell. The agent suffix "-er" is the one English has used for centuries to name people who do a thing, so "scalper" is simply "one who scalps," built from an existing word rather than coined from scratch. The suffix itself has a longer road. It descends from Latin "-arius," which English inherited through Old French "-ier" and Middle English "-er," and it reached Old English as "-ere" by a Germanic route. Nothing about the word's making is unusual: a verb or noun with "-er" added to name its agent is one of English's most productive habits, and "scalper" follows that pattern exactly.

Synonyms: ticket resaler, broker, speculator, sharper, hustler

Antonyms: buyer, consumer, purchaser, client, customer