beginner

plural beginners

1. Someone who is just starting at something, or has only recently started.

   I'm new to learning Finnish: I'm just a beginner.

2. Someone who sets something in motion.

   The beginner of the games lit the ceremonial torch.

   1 more example

   This method, it is thought, stands a very good chance of becoming legalized in Maryland, the State which has some fame for being a beginner of things. Maryland received the first telegraphic message in the world; it had the first electric railway in the world, and formed the first steam railway company in America.

   1906 September 8, “Tempering Justice in America; Making it Cruel Abroad: What is being Done in Many Lands to Cure the Criminal”, in The Sun, volume 30, number 205, St. John, New Brunswick, page 13

3. entertainmentAn actor who is present on stage in the first moments of a play.

   On the stage, the beginners for the first piece had taken their places — the chorus were there, scared but determined, and in the wings waited Harlequin, in the person of Charles Lyall […]

   1949, Walter Macqueen-Pope, Gaiety: Theatre of Enchantment, page 60