Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to look over, to stare at, to investigate.

1781		Cumberland Pacquet 7 Aug. 4/1: Now that I’ve laid the whole Mys’ry so thoroughly open, your Fancy, I think, will have nothing to scope on.
1955		J. Blake letter 27 March in Joint (1972) 58: Then I got Willie the bandleader narrowly scoping me to see if I’m going to jump off the end of the dock again.
1971		T. Whitmore Memphis-Nam-Sweden 127: She slipped around town to scope out the news.
1972		E. Folb Urban Black Argot 145: Scope On Someone to look intently at someone, esp. a female.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 143: A nice-lookin’ young lady walkin’ down d’ street ’n you scopin’ on her.
1983		R. Price Breaks 61: Do you guys remember the first time you scoped out a stroke book?
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 3: Meeks [...] scoped the setup.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 58: The guards might scope you down as you tipped that cold chalice to your lips.
1993		R. Shell Iced 47: Some eyes would scope you out to see if you were cool enough to gain entrance.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 80: The rollers are scopin’ us.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 28: He shook his head and scoped the room, looking for dealers and young cunt.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 222: The born New Yorker [...] head swivilling to scope out would-be muggers lurking behind parked cars.
2004		T. Winton ‘Boner McPharlin’s Moll’ in Turning (2005) 256: He eased the clutch and scoped his mirror.
2009		T. Black Gutted 235: You’re not scoping new prperty, are you?
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 47: Riffing through the prisoner files, scoping out a ninety-seven-tear-old’s mug shot.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] Guess he’d scoped out the escape route as soon as he’d checked into the room.
2011		G. Knight Hood Rat 187: We send in a girl to scope him out, get up close to him.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] He crouched and scoped the flat length of street.
2019		C.D. Rosales Word Is Bone [ebook] Looking down like he was scoping shit out.
2020		G. Krauze Who They Was 7: Big D [is paid] for scoping the ting [...] me and Gotti for doing the eat .
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 89: ‘[H]ang around [...] scope the scene’.
2024		D. Swierczynski California Bear 32: [H]e drove to the Silver Lake home to scope out the second house.

2. to look in various public places for a partner for romance or sex.

1976		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 5: scope out some juju – to pick up a sexual partner.
1989		J. Doyle College Sl. Dict. 🌐 scoping [Princeton] looking for possible members of the other sex to date, etc.
1995		R.P. McNamara Sex, Scams, and Street Life 111: Johnny learned to ‘scope the scene’ for men in the club who looked as if they had money and drugs.

3. (US campus) to cheat by copying in an exam.

1977

Eble Campus Sl. Fall 5: scope – to cheat on an exam by looking at another student’s paper.

4. to stare at someone intently, usu. with sexual interest.

1978		A. Maupin Tales of the City (1984) 87: I scoped you out when you walked in here.
1982		W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 304: We can pound a few brews and scope the local units (who are all too often grimbos).
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 173: Hey! Scope-out on that one!
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 57: Should he scope a particularly oomphy muchacha rumbaing down Dolores Street.
1996		UGK ‘Pinky Ring’ 🎵 She done opened up her legs and let me scope the pussy lips.
2000		Guardian Weekend 26 Feb. 3: A paedophile scoping out his next victim.

5. (US) to ascertain, to work out.

1994		T. Wolff In Pharoah’s Army 156: ‘[T]wo months. It took me longer than that to get things scoped out down here’ .
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 460: We got a problem and we need to scope things out.
2004		N. Kelley ‘The Code’ in Brooklyn Noir 183: He did have a problem with her, and she had scoped that out earlier.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] Royce should have scoped it [i.e. drug dealing] first.