scalper
/ˈskælpɚ/
"scalper" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scalper” is uncommon English (frequency #90,940 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #90,940
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - One who scalps, or removes the scalp of another.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | scalper |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈskælpɚ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #90,940 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “scalper” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
scalper is uncommon English at frequency #90,940 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈskælpɚ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 7 senses are on record.
scalper has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From scalp + -er. The correct English form is scalper, spelled S-C-A-L-P-E-R.
Definition
- 1One who scalps, or removes the scalp of another.
- 2One who scalps tickets to popular entertainment events: buying them in advance and then selling them (e.g. online or just outside the venue of the event), often at inflated prices.
- 3One who scalps any other item with limited availability.
- 4A gambler who scalps.
- 5A person on an open outcry exchange trading floor who buys and sells rapidly for his or her own account, aiming to buy from a seller and a little later sell to a buyer, making a small profit from the difference (roughly the amount of the bid/offer spread, or less).
- 6A machine for removing the ends of grain, such as wheat or rye, or for separating the different grades of broken wheat, semolina, etc.
- 7A surgical instrument for scraping carious bones.
Etymology
From scalp + -er.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “scalper”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-C-A-L-P-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈskælpɚ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.