opportunity for exercising the faculties or abilities; capacity for action: plenty of scope for improvement range of view, perception, or grasp; outlook the area covered by an activity, topic, etc; range: the scope of his thesis was vast slack left in an anchor cable that part of an expression that is governed by a given operator: the scope of the negation in PV–(q∧r) is –(q∧r)
short for telescope, microscope, oscilloscopepurpose or aim
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
scope /skoʊp/USA pronunciation
n., v., scoped, scop•ing.
n.
v.
-scope-, root.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026n.
- extent, limit or range of view, outlook, etc.:[uncountable]a question beyond the scope of this paper.
- opportunity for activity:[uncountable]to give one's fancy full scope.
- Optics[countable] a short form of microscope, radarscope, etc.
v.
- Slang Termsto look at or over* examine:[~ + out + object]to scope out the situation.[~ + object + out]Scope this guy out!
-scope-, root.
- -scope- comes from Greek, where it has the meaning "see.'' This meaning is found in such words as: fluoroscope, gyroscope, horoscope, microscope, microscopic, periscope, radioscopy, spectroscope, stethoscope, telescope, telescopic.
scope
(skōp),USA pronunciation n., v., scoped, scop•ing.
n.
v.t.
scope′less, adj.
-scope,
n.
- extent or range of view, outlook, application, operation, effectiveness, etc.:an investigation of wide scope.
- space for movement or activity;
opportunity for operation:to give one's fancy full scope. - extent in space;
a tract or area. - length:a scope of cable.
- aim or purpose.
- Linguistics, Philosophythe range of words or elements of an expression over which a modifier or operator has control:In "old men and women,'' "old'' may either take "men and women'' or just "men'' in its scope.
- Optics(used as a short form of microscope, oscilloscope, periscope, radarscope, riflescope, telescopic sight, etc.)
v.t.
- Slang Termsto look at, read, or investigate, as in order to evaluate or appreciate.
- Slang Terms scope out:
- to look at or over;
examine;
check out:a rock musician scoping out the audience before going on stage. - to master;
figure out:By the time we'd scoped out the problem, it was too late.
- to look at or over;
- Greek skopós aim, mark to shoot at; akin to skopeîn to look at (see -scope)
- Italian scopo
- 1525–35
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged See range.
- 2.See corresponding entry in Unabridged margin, room, liberty.
-scope,
- Opticsa combining form meaning "instrument for viewing,'' used in the formation of compound words:telescope.Cf. -scopy.
- Greek -skopion, -skopeion, equivalent. to skop(eîn) to look at (akin to sképtesthai to look, view carefully; compare skeptic) + -ion, -eion noun, nominal suffix
- Neo-Latin -scopium
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
indicating an instrument for observing, viewing, or detecting: microscope, stethoscope
'full scope' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):