July 27, 2011
- scout (verb)
- \SKOUT\
- What does it mean?
- 1 : to go about and observe in search of information : reconnoiter2 a : to make a search b : to find by searching
- How do you use it?
- While Mom and Dad unpacked in the hotel room, my brother and I scouted out the swimming pool and exercise room down the hall.
- Are you a word wiz?
The history of "scout" is related to one of the five senses. Which one do you think it is?
You have an ear for language if you chose A. It might seem like "scout" should have its roots in words having to do with looking or seeing. But "scout" traces back to Anglo-French (the French spoken in England after the Norman conquest) and the Anglo-French word "escuter," which means "to listen." "Escuter" itself comes from the Latin word "auscultare," which also means "to listen." Perhaps scouts from long ago relied as much on their sense of hearing as on their sense of sight.
