▪ I. scooper
(ˈskuːpə(r))
[f. scoop v.1 + -er1.]
1. One who or that which scoops.
| 1668 [implied in b]. 1755 in Johnson. a 1861 T. Winthrop Canoe & Saddle iii. (1883) 27 The Indians..sweep down stream with a scoop-net. Salmon..are taken twenty an hour by every scooper. 1897 Syd. Soc. Lex., Scoopers' Pneumonia, a form of chronic Pneumoconiosis occurring among grain-scoopers. 1908 Speaker 1 Aug. 633/2 The custom was for the steamboat company to go to a ‘boss shoveller’ and hire his gang of ‘scoopers’. |
b. A name for the avocet (see quot. 1668).
| 1668 Charleton Onomast. 96 Avosetta,..the Scooper (because his long narrow beak, arched upward, resembles the long crooked scoop). 1768 Pennant Brit. Zool. II. 399. 1856 Morris Nests & Eggs Brit. Birds III. 15. |
2. A tool used for hollowing out portions of the surface worked upon; esp. in Engraving.
| 1837 Penny Cycl. IX. 437/2 Other lines being of the same width through their whole depth, must have been produced with that species of graver called a scooper. 1839 Chatto Wood Engraving 653 Gravers; tint-tools; gouges or scoopers; and flat tools or chisels. 1872 Spon's Dict. Engin. v. 1817 [Engravers' tools] A flat scooper;..a round scooper. 1884 Cassell's Family Mag. Feb. 152/2 [Modelling in clay] A scooper and two or three..scrapers will be..required. |
▪ II. scooper, scoopet
see scupper, scuppet.