boy scout

Alternative forms

• Boy Scout
• boyscout (less common)

Noun

boy scout (plural boy scouts)

1. A male member of the Scout Movement.
2. (sometimes derogatory) A man adhering to the values of honesty and idealism, and possibly somewhat naive or unworldly.
   • 1982, The Economist, volume 284, Economist Newspaper Ltd., page 24:

     An independently rich 52-year-old, he is very much a political boy scout, and has flailed the state Republican party as a cloistered "country club".

   • 1987 October 2, Wall Street Journal,:

     But the bottom line is that Simon is running for president as the boy scout who adheres to traditional liberal policies and solutions.

   • 2003, Roger F. S. Kaplan, Conservative socialism: the decline of radicalism and triumph of the Left in France, Transaction Publishers, page 91:

     Rocard, whose two marriages had failed during his long years as the left's boy scout, was reported to be living with a psychoanalyst.