rookie

CEFRB1

/ˈɹʊki/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A person who is new to a job, activity, or organization.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A novice.

Examples

  • The rookie breathed new life into the team.

  • The game was going well until I made that rookie mistake.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. An athlete either new to the sport or to a team or in his/her first year of professional competition, especially said of baseball, basketball, hockey and American football players.

  2. An inexperienced recruit, especially in the police or armed forces.

  3. A type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.

More examples

In context

  • Tom is a rookie.

  • the rookiest of rookie mistakes

  • In 1977 he rookied as a smokejumper with the International Forest Fire Systems, a private firm that contracted smokejumping services to Canada's Northwest Territories.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The blank player had never played in a professional game before today.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Thought to be an alteration of recruit + -ie, or from rook (“a cheat”) + -ie. Another possible origin is Dutch broekie (short for broekvent (“a boy still in short trousers”)), a common term for a shipmate. Also suggested is Irish rúca (“an inexperienced person”).