A scraper is a tool designed to remove material from a surface by pushing or pulling a flat, often sharp edge across it. You might use a scraper to peel old paint off a wall, remove ice from a car windshield on a freezing morning, or clean dried food off a countertop. Bakers use bench scrapers (also called dough scrapers) to divide and move dough around.

The key feature of any scraper is that edge: it needs to be firm enough to catch and lift away whatever you're trying to remove. Some scrapers are simple metal or plastic rectangles, while others have handles for better grip. Window scrapers often have razor-sharp blades for stubborn stickers or paint spots, so they should be used carefully.

The word can also refer to machines that scrape on a much larger scale. Construction crews use giant earth scrapers to level ground for new buildings or roads, scraping away tons of dirt and rock.

In the digital world, a web scraper is software that collects information from websites automatically, like gathering prices from online stores to compare them. This technical meaning comes from the same idea: the program “scrapes” data off web pages the way a physical scraper removes material from a surface.