apprenticeship

What it means

1. The condition of, or the time served by, an apprentice.
2. The system by which a person learning a craft or trade is instructed by a master for a set time under set conditions.

   Entry to shop grades is by apprenticeship, boys bring taken as apprentices on leaving school.

   1942 July-August, T. F. Cameron, “How the Staff of a Railway is Recruited”, in Railway Magazine, page 206

   2 more examples

   There, however, he had disappointed expectation. In sooth, his genius was of too creative an order for the apprenticeship of learning; he needed life in its hopes, its fears, its endurance; all that the poet learns to reproduce.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Anticipation”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 41

   Apprenticeship programmes supply the industry with an ongoing cohort of qualified talent. It is much cheaper to train new people than to pay inflated wages to attract existing talent. Apprenticeships are also a useful way of teaching the practical, hands-on skills that the modern railway needs.

   2023 March 8, Neil Robertson, “Tackling the skills shortage”, in RAIL, number 978, page 33

In a sentence

There, however, he had disappointed expectation. In sooth, his genius was of too creative an order for the apprenticeship of learning; he needed life in its hopes, its fears, its endurance; all that the poet learns to reproduce.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Anticipation”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 41

Where it comes from

1. Englishapprentice
2. Proto-Germanic*skapjaną
3. Englishapprenticeship

From apprentice + -ship.