scout

Meanings

Noun

• A person sent out to gain and bring in tidings; especially, one employed in war to gain information about the enemy and ground.
• An act of scouting or reconnoitering.
• A member of any number of youth organizations belonging to the international scout movement, such as the Boy Scouts of America or Girl Scouts of the United States.
• A person who assesses and/or recruits others; especially, one who identifies promising talent on behalf of a sports team.
• A person employed to monitor rivals' activities in the petroleum industry.
• A college servant (in Oxford, England or Yale or Harvard), originally implied male, attending to (usually several) students or undergraduates in a variety of ways that includes cleaning; corresponding to the duties of a gyp or possibly bedder at Cambridge University; and at Dublin, a skip.
• A fielder in a game for practice.
• A fighter aircraft.
• A preliminary image that allows the technician to make adjustments before the actual diagnostic images.
• A swift sailing boat.
• The guillemot.

Verb

• To explore a wide terrain, as if on a search; to reconnoiter.
• To observe, watch, or look for, as a scout; to follow for the purpose of observation, as a scout.
• To reject with contempt.
• To scoff.
• To pour forth a liquid forcibly, especially excrement.

Origin

• From Middle English scout, scoult, from Old French escoute ("action of listening"), verbal noun from escouter, from Latin auscultare ("to listen"). The verb comes from the noun.
• Of North Germanic origin. Compare Old Norse skúta ("taunt"), Middle English scoute; thus may be related to English shout.
• From Middle English scoute, skoute (also schoute, shoute, schuyt), from Middle Low German schûte or Middle Dutch schute; or possibly from Old Norse skúta.