rookie

plural rookies

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

   1 more example

   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.

   2026 March 4, Christian Wolmar, “Railtrack: what really happened”, in RAIL, number 1056, page 53

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. UKA type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.

comparative rookier · superlative rookiest

1. Non-professional; amateur

   the rookiest of rookie mistakes

   1 more example

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

present singular third person rookies · participle present rookying · participle past rookied · past rookied

1. intransitiveTo be a rookie; to go through one's inexperienced learning period in a job, team, or organization.

   Grath and I had joined the Iron Bandits MC the same year; pledged together, rookied together.

   2019, Heather West, Jax: Iron Bandits MC

   3 more examples

   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.

   2002, Smokejumpers, page 67

   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. […]'

   2009, Jonathan Kellerman, Billy Straight

   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.

   2016, Bill Loomis, On This Day in Detroit History, page 89

2. transitivehobbiesTo haze one or more rookies as an initiation ritual.

   There is none of that 'rookying stuff' but they don't pay any attention to you either, and that is worse.

   1947, National Association of Secondary School Principals, Bulletin, page 40

   4 more examples

   Great was my surprise when I found that I had been "rookied" in for a policing-up detail with no chance to "allez."

   1919, Harold C. Bloxham, “Training at La Courtine”, in The History of Battery E, 66th Artillery C. A. C., page 86

   I was rookied in women's (ice) hockey mid-winter. I was made to strip nude and walk into McDonald's and order a big Mac.

   2002, Celia Brackenridge, Kari Fasting, Sexual Harassment and Abuse in Sport

   Last year when I was 'rookied' they had this whole agenda where you had to do a ' shot ' [ of alcohol ] and run around and do this little circuit [ race ] —the idea was to get everyone to puke that night or just get totally hammered ... the majority of the people [rookies] were knocked out [physically unable to continue] by ten o'clock.

   2007, Kevin Young, Philip White, Sport and Gender in Canada, page 313

   As long as a player is a rookie, they are susceptible to being "rookied,” although initiations typically occur at the beginning of the season, or just before.

   2013, Curtis Fogel, Game-Day Gangsters: Crime and Deviance in Canadian Football, page 59