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ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Rookie

/ˈɹʊki/ · noun

Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

  1. An inexperienced recruit, especially in the police or armed forces.
  2. A novice.
  3. 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.
  4. (British) A type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.
  5. Non-professional; amateur
  6. (intransitive) To be a rookie; to go through one's inexperienced learning period in a job, team, or organization.
  7. (transitive, chiefly sports) To haze one or more rookies as an initiation ritual.

Example Sentences

Corbett is convinced it was a systemic failure: "The Thames Train was driven by a rookie driver who had only just come into the job. It is, in fact, difficult to run through a red light, because you have to cancel the Automatic Warning System (AWS) and so on. But he continued for 700 yards and he accelerated, which no one understands why.
The game was going well until I made that rookie mistake.
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.
As they go ton the stretch of road that ran between the park and the 5 Freeway, Stu said 'Schoelkopf gave me the kind of lecture I haven't heard since I rookied. […]'
He rookied in 1980 and settled in to play right field for the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1987 and was critical to the Tigers winning the 1984 World Series against the San Diego Padres.
Grath and I had joined the Iron Bandits MC the same year; pledged together, rookied together.
Great was my surprise when I found that I had been "rookied" in for a policing-up detail with no chance to "allez."

Synonyms for rookie

beginnernewbienoobtyronovicecubgreenhorn

Antonyms for rookie

Related Words

greenhorncubtenderfootnovicebeginnernewcomerpushoverlittlejuniornewbratpledgeyoungprobieinceptionentrybeginninginfancyamateurintern

Word Forms

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

Practice and Learn More

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does rookie mean?

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

What is a synonym for rookie?

Common synonyms include beginner, newbie, noob, tyro.

What is the opposite of rookie?

The opposite depends on the specific sense.

How do you use rookie in a sentence?

Corbett is convinced it was a systemic failure: "The Thames Train was driven by a rookie driver who had only just come into the job. It is, in fact, difficult to run through a red light, because you have to cancel the Automatic Warning System (AWS) and so on. But he continued for 700 yards and he accelerated, which no one understands why.

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.