a member of an organization of boys BoyScouts, founded in England in 1908 by Lieutenant General Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell, that seeks to develop certain skills in its members, as well as character, self-reliance, and usefulness to others.
(lowercase) a member of any similar society elsewhere.
(lowercase) a person whose deeds, obliging personality, idealism, etc., exceed normal expectations.
See Scout
informal an apparently virtuous and innocent person
Use of boy scout to mean “someone who is obliging and idealistic” usually implies that the person is naive or unworldly.
First recorded in 1905–10
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I was both watching and reading about all these groups imploding; it was companies, friend groups, church groups, Boy Scout troops.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
It seemed like a natural choice for the former bugle-playing Boy Scout, who attended the youth program at the suggestion of his grandmother.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2026
Trinkets from his Boy Scout days, winter sweaters for the dogs, and $60 worth of food were among his missing belongings.
From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2025
The on-screen Blue Boy Scout conveyed a Smallville-bred sense of humility throughout, saying he almost didn’t take the role of Superman for fear of being too busy to help with a newborn.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2025
I’d played basketball and baseball and done the Cub Scout thing, tried the Boy Scout thing—but I always kept my distance from the other boys.
From "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" by Benjamin Alire Saenz
In August, a boy scout troop hiking in the Emigrant Wilderness north of Yosemite National Park came upon a 78-year old man who had spent a night without food, water or shelter in the mountains.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2025
His passion for journalism was first piqued in high school, when, as a boy scout on a flood relief mission in Fairbanks, he bonded with an Anchorage Daily News reporter.
From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
The former boy scout said many people are wondering how they would’ve fared in the situation, and what they could do to prepare for something similar.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 29, 2022
But for Buzz, a lantern-jawed boy scout with a penchant for dramatically narrating his mission logs, moving on with his life would be tantamount to admitting failure — something he refuses to do.
From The Verge ● Jun. 18, 2022
“I go to sleep by a campfire that looked like it was built by a boy scout, and I awaken in the middle of the eighteenth century.”
From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
