/ skəʊp; NAmE skoʊp/ noun , verb
■ noun [ U ]
1.
scope (for sth) | scope (for sb) (to do sth) the opportunity or ability to do or achieve sth
SYN potential :
There's still plenty of scope for improvement.
The extra money will give us the scope to improve our facilities.
Her job offers very little scope for promotion.
First try to do something that is within your scope .
2.
the range of things that a subject, an organization, an activity, etc. deals with :
Our powers are limited in scope .
This subject lies beyond the scope of our investigation.
These issues were outside the scope of the article.
3.
-scope (in nouns) an instrument for looking through or watching sth with :
microscope
telescope
■ verb
[ vn ] ( informal ) to look at or examine sth thoroughly :
His eyes scoped the room, trying to spot her in the crowd.
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PHRASAL VERBS
- scope sth out
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WORD ORIGIN
noun senses 1 to 2 mid 16th cent. (in the sense target for shooting at ): from Italian scopo aim, from Greek skopos target, from skeptesthai look out.
noun sense 3 and verb early 17th cent. from modern Latin -scopium , from Greek skopein look at. The verb dates from the 1970s.