scop

noun

1. (historical)A poet or minstrel in Anglo-Saxon England.

   “Jealous and full of anger, they leered as the soft song of the scop praised the All-Powerful.”

   “The poem is, therefore, entitled Widsith which means a great traveller. The scop was moving from place to place to find a Lord in his desolate mind here.[…]The Lament of Deor tells a different story. It is the story of sorrow, clearly defined, the sorrow of a similar scop who may have been thrown out of favour and led into an eager search of a new master.”

   “During the feast held in Heorot to celebrate Beowulf's mortal wounding of Grendel, the poet has King Hrothgar's scop perform a 'lay' whose theme of death and disaster is clearly meant to act as a sort of balance to the unbridled joy of the hall-people.”

   “The beginning of the poem introduces a speech by Widsith (lines 1—4a), with an accompanying account of his life and travels as a scop:[…].”

2. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of seasonal coefficient of performance.