nonadept

plural nonadepts

1. One who is not an adept, one who has not mastered a particular esoteric discipline.

   It is mysterious and appears sensually powerful to a nonadept.

   2018, Dinkar Goswami, Yogini: The Quest for the Gate

   3 more examples

   Many people who disapprove of alcohol are actually terrified of losing control, which is the attitude of a nonadept.

   2003, Kala Trobe, The Witch's Guide to Life, page 96

   A nonadept sacrifices God knows what, to set up a blockage even I can't Work through—'

   2013, Celia Friedman, Black Sun Rising

   Regarding the ranges of these palaeographic areas, the terms mentioned might again be misleading to a nonadept, who, for example, has to know that the Delta is mostly uncharted territory in regard to Demotic palaeography (due to the lack of sources from this area).

   2020, Vanessa Davies, Dimitri Laboury, The Oxford Handbook of Egyptian Epigraphy and Palaeography, page 611

comparative more nonadept · superlative most nonadept

1. Not adept; unskilled.

   At the same time, individuals trapped within institutional structures become increasingly nonadept at navigating extrainstitutional locations.

   2015, David T. Mitchell, Sharon L. Snyder, The Biopolitics of Disability, page 121

   2 more examples

   One of the things that has bugged me a long time about strips—and it hasn't been solved yet—is that the comic artists seem to be totally nonadept at dealing with cultural diversity.

   1995, Jane Amari, quoted by Lee Nordling, Your Career in the Comics, page 110

   The dialogs have a disorienting effect, stranding the nonadept Western reader somewhere between Sleeman's experienced poise and a touristic vertigo.

   2002, Margery Sabin, Dissenters and Mavericks, page 86