The story
- North Germanic · derived from
- Middle English · inherited fromscalp
- English todayscalp
From Middle English scalp, skalp, scalpe (“crown of the head; skull”). Originally a northern word, and therefore probably from a North Germanic source, although the sense-development is unclear; compare Sylt North Frisian Skolp (“dandruff”), Old Norse skálpr (“sheath”), Old Swedish skalp, Dutch schelp (“shell”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.