Scalping

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The act of removing the upper layer of skin from the skull, engaging in rapid financial transactions to capitalize on small changes, or reselling tickets for events at inflated prices
2. A practice involving the extraction of the scalp for presentation, executing swift market trades to gain profit from minor shifts, or exploiting ticket prices through reselling above face value
3. The practice of removing the skin of the head as a form of punishment or trophy ; the rapid trading of securities or commodities to profit from small price movements ; the act of purchasing tickets and selling them again at a higher cost

Etymology: The noun "scalp" is the older root here: it came into English from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German "schalpe" (a shell or husk), and the sense of the top of the head being cut away is what gave the word its grisly edge. Rather than tracing "scalping" back through a long chain of ancient roots, the more useful picture is that it is simply "scalp" with the ending "-ing" added, a common way English turns a thing into an activity. So the verb "scalping" means doing to someone what the noun names, and the noun form "scalping" is the act itself. The three meanings grew out of that single core. Taking a scalp was a violent act, and the financial sense, buying and quickly reselling to skim small profits, and the ticket sense, buying up seats and reselling them above face value, both borrow the image of stripping away the outer layer of something for personal gain. Each later sense reuses the same metaphor of taking the surface part of a thing and leaving the rest behind.

Synonyms: reselling, ticket scalping

Antonyms: holding, retaining