scoop v.
1. (US) to beat, to defeat.
![]() | Innocents at Home 333: It’s all up, you know, it’s all up. It ain’t no use. They’ve scooped him. | |
![]() | Salt Lake Herald (UT) 25 Dec. 51/2: [headline] The police Scooped. The Anarchists Outwit Chief Hubbard. | |
![]() | Complete Short Stories (1993) I 451: Some duffer’s got ahead of us. We’ve been scooped, that’s all! | ‘Dutch Courage’|
![]() | Columbia Eve. Missourian (MO) 10 Dec. 7/1: On Fitzmorris’ first day as chief, he ‘scooped’ the whole police department by [...] arresting a bandit who had robbed a bank. | |
![]() | Right to an Answer (1978) 123: Charlie Whittier looked scooped and thwarted. |
2. to trick.
![]() | Leeds Times 25 Mar. 6/5: There’s some fellow playing the confidence gamed [...] ‘scooped’ a granger out of a hundred dollars yesterday. |
3. (US campus) to obtain.
![]() | Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 16 Feb. 11/1: ‘[S]ince my arrival [in Australia] I have scooped the boodle to some tune’. | |
![]() | Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 24 May 10/1: He means to ‘scoop in the boodle’. | |
![]() | Campus Sl. Nov. 4: scoop – to acquire, whether by buying, making, finding. | |
![]() | It Ain’t All for Nothin 192: ‘We scooped enough cash to lay up for a while, maybe you can take Denise down to Puerto Rico’. | |
![]() | You Gotta Play Hurt 276: ‘I can scoop good jing at The Cake’. | |
![]() | Tinged Valor 102: As I placed handcuffs on the suspect [...] I thought how much of a double bonus we had just scooped. | |
![]() | Franchise Babe 5: She’d already been second twice this year and scooped $200,000. |
4. (US, also scoop in, scoop up) to arrest.
![]() | Sedalia Wkly Bazoo (MO) 16 May 5/2: The ‘Chicago’ House Inmates Scooped by the Police [...] Six of these females constitute the proprietress and inmates of the swell ‘Chicago’ house on West Main. | |
![]() | Freeland trib. (PA) 16 Aug. 1/2: The police scooped in [...] three members of the gang. | |
![]() | Eve. Bulletin (Honolulu, HI) 5 Nov. 1/4: Seven drunks being the total number scooped up by the police. | |
![]() | Wenatchee Dly World (WA) 2 Oct. 4/2: A bunch of repentent sinners, who had been scooped in the by the police last night. | |
![]() | Bismarck Trib. (ND) 2 Dec. 1/4: Freeze was inistsent that drunks could be scooped up on the south side. | |
![]() | Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 49: ‘I was scooped in by the constabulary.’ ‘What! You told me they didn’t arrest you.’. | |
![]() | Friends of Eddie Coyle 167: The guys he wants to trade off got scooped this morning. | |
![]() | Union Dues (1978) 29: Maybe we scoop him. | |
![]() | Close Pursuit (1988) 214: When the hell are you going to scoop those guys. | |
![]() | Indep. 22 Mar. 3: FBI Special Agent Douglas Domin said [...] ‘Scotland Yard was in the process of scooping him up on the extradition charge when [they] released him two days before he was due to be collected.’. | |
![]() | Charlie Opera 4: It’s too bad that other kid got scooped up last year. | |
![]() | Crook County 115: [F]ailure to pay court fees, sustain employment, remain sober, or comply with reporting procedures could all get you scooped up by the police. |
5. (drugs) to sniff cocaine through a scoop n. (1c)
![]() | Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) n.p.: I taught him how to scoop cocaine. |
6. (also scoop up) to pick up, to seduce.
![]() | Semi-Tough 233: Why don’t you scoop up one of these little dandies around here and take her out to Disneyland? | |
![]() | Digger’s Game (1981) 61: I scooped her. She was a great kid. |
7. (US) to watch, usu. people in the street.
![]() | Dict. of Today’s Words. | et al.
8. see scoop in
In phrases
1. to gather or gain something, often in large quantities (esp. to the exclusion of others).
![]() | Three Years in Calif. 440: [The Roman Catholic Church] could scoop up whole tribes of savages, dazzling them with the symbols of religion [DA]. | |
![]() | N.Y. 160: He runs seventy ’busses on this line, and scoops in three ’r four hundred a day [F&H]. | |
![]() | Capricornian (Rockhampton) 6 Feb. 30/4: They were all jiggers, but this old chap had too much toe for them and waltzed in, and I scooped the rhino. | |
![]() | Hard-pan 3: White Pine scooped the last dollar he had [DA]. | |
![]() | Society Snapshots 180: Oh, I’ve managed to scoop in a bit [i.e. of money]. | |
![]() | Marvel 10 Mar. 173: I was delighted when I saw you scoop up a quid. | |
![]() | Right Ho, Jeeves 9: He’s just the sort of chap a girl like Madeline Bassett might scoop in with relish. | |
![]() | CUSS 189: Scooped up Take someone else’s date away. | et al.|
![]() | Semi-Tough 47: I need two thousand to scoop up and bail out. |
2. to take someone in, to dupe or defeat someone.
![]() | Harper’s Mag. Oct. 680/1: Tell him he’ll have to send this other fellow some more beans, for I’ve got him scooped [at draw-poker] [DA]. | |
![]() | Boston Journal 30 Mar. 2/3: The Mexican Consul [...] [charged] from $3 to $4 for passports to cross the Mexican line, and scooped in many tenderfeet [DA]. | |
![]() | Answers 25 Dec. n.p.: Last night he slept in his bed when we walked the streets... To think that he should scoop us! [F&H]. | |
![]() | A Standard Hist. of Oklahoma II 750: They had just been ‘scooped,’ with no chance to present their side of the case, and they were dumbfounded [DA]. | |
![]() | Georgie May 234: Ah am sick uh scooping in ev’ybody though—only one in twenty gives you anything. |
3. (orig. US) to have a stroke of luck, a ‘lucky break’, usu. in business.
![]() | Film Fun 24 Apr. 20: Old Charlie and Ben scooped about – oh well, £17635496176 [...] and bought diamond scooters. |
4. (US) to impart information to someone [scoop n. (2b)].
![]() | in Sweet Daddy 69: You want me to scoop you in on the kid stuff in my life. |
5. see sense 2 above.
(US campus) to pick up, to make advances to.
![]() | Sl. U. 165: I saw him trying to scoop on Nancy at the party. |
to make a major profit; lit. or fig.
![]() | Kyneton Guardian (Vic.) 28 Apr. 2/4: Scooping the Pool [...] It is an attractive picture and its value is estimated at £25. Such good fortune as this is termed ‘scooping the pools’ by our American cousins. | |
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 10/3: One day, just as we were in the meridian of our happiness, an old man with a crutch wheezed up and scooped the pool. [...] Wonderful, isn’t it? Something in the crutch, perchance. [Ibid.] 11 Apr. 17/3: [W]e fear this is simply offering a premium for dishonest owners to run a bye or (if necessary, and the prize is worth having) even half a dozen byes before the time for scooping the big pool arrives. | |
![]() | Sporting Times 8 Mar. 1/3: He smiled upon us sweetly, as he scooped the pool completely. | ‘Unexpected Places’|
![]() | Man from Snowy River (1902) 39: With his imported horse [...] Will scoop the pool and leave us broke. | ‘An Idyll of Dandaloo’ in|
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 21 July 4s/3: It’s then it dawns upon your mind, although you’re not a fool, / That you’ve done the graft and ‘barrack’ while the skiter scooped the pool. | |
![]() | Sporting Times 19 Feb. 3/2: The most transparent lumberer in town who on him works / The old ‘Confidence’ manoeuvre, scoops the pool. | ‘Poetry in Prosaic Places’|
![]() | Birmingham Dly Gaz. 9 Sept. 4/6: Kitchener [...] will wipe the floor with him and scoop the kitty. | |
![]() | Greenmantle (1930) 433: We have won anyway; and if Peter has had a slice of luck, we’ve scooped the pool. | |
![]() | Sun. Post (Lanarks) 24 July 5/1: [headline] Swindlers Scoop the Pool. | |
![]() | Foveaux 213: They’ll scoop the pool and the Chief likes heavy bags. It’s no use coming in with a light bag. | |
![]() | Dundee Eve. Teleg. 27 Aug. 6/4: A firm of London bookmakers who [...] forecast betting on the St Leger have scooped the pool. | |
![]() | Arbroath Herald 23 June 13/2: Arbroath Scop the Pool. Arbroath carried off the honours in the [...] qualifying section. | |
![]() | We Think the World of You (1971) 25: The only news I get of him is second-hand [...] She scoops the pool. |
1. (US campus) to give someone a lift, to pick someone up in a car.
![]() | Circle Home 232: The squall disappeared and somebody scooped him up and turned on their radiator. | |
![]() | Campus Sl. Nov. 6: scoop up – give someone a ride: After work I’m going to scoop Brandon up, and we’re going to play ball. |
2. see senses 2 and 4 above.