novice

noun

1)

a five-day course for novices

Syn:

beginner, learner, neophyte, newcomer, initiate, tyro, fledgling; apprentice, trainee, probationer, student, pupil, tenderfoot; informal rookie, newbie, greenhorn

Ant:

expert, veteran

2)

a novice who was never ordained

Syn:

neophyte, novitiate; postulant, proselyte, catechumen

••

novice, apprentice, beginner, neophyte, probationer

All of these nouns are used to describe someone who has not yet acquired the skills and experience needed to qualify for a trade, a career, a profession, or a sphere of life. Beginner is the most general and informal term, used to describe someone who has begun to acquire the necessary skills but has not yet mastered them (violin lessons for beginners). An apprentice is also a beginner, usually a young person, who is serving under a more experienced master or teacher to learn the skills of a trade or profession (an apprentice to one of the great Renaissance painters); in a broad sense, apprentice refers to any beginner whose efforts are unpolished. Novice implies that the person lacks training and experience (a novice when it came to writing fiction), while neophyte is a less negative term, suggesting that the person is eagerly learning the ways, methods, or principles of something (he was a neophyte at this type of sailing). A probationer is a beginner who is undergoing a trial period, during which he or she must prove an aptitude for a certain type of work or life (she was a lowly probationer, with no privileges or status).