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.
He still plays videogame marathons with a fellow former Boy Scout, Demitri Camperos, whose parents lost the Altadena home where he grew up in the fires.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2025
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
Our columnist remembers his time with the late filmmaker, who famously loathed dissecting his work — but hung on to a Boy Scout ethos one couldn’t help but love.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025
But he’d been raised by such nerdy, square parents, who’d dragged him off to Sunday school and Boy Scout meetings, and had talked so seriously about how important it was to be a good person.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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 preppy styles — ones that jarred in Nigo’s last two shows — were more thought out, like one boy scout scarf in multicolor knit, although it still felt a tad obvious.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 21, 2023
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
So, because of my brother, whose existence was not even acknowledged, I had to be a good boy scout.
From "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" by Benjamin Alire Saenz
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.
