Meaning

noun a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event

noun a Boy Scout or Girl Scout

noun someone employed to discover and recruit talented persons (especially in the worlds of entertainment or sports)

originUncertain. The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) groups the verb scout, scoot (/skut/, regionally /skʌut/) "cause liquid to gush" with a noun scout "sudden gush or flow of water, as from a spout or over rock", and considers the pair to be of Scandinavian origin, perhaps related to Old Norse skjóta (“shoot”); however, scout (or scut) was formerly also found as a word for "flow of water over…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0