Meanings
- humorouspluralplural onlyslangLow numbers or a small amount of something, especially seen as signaling one's inexperience or naïveté.
Compared to Bezos, Zoom's insider dumps are rookie numbers.
2020 September 28, David Canellis, “Zoom execs dumped $580M of stock as its share price rose 622%”, in TNW, archived from the original on 02 Aug 20212 more examples
Garfield recently discussed how he got into character as a Jesuit priest for the movie Silence by being celibate for half a year. But Barrymore's reaction? Those are rookie numbers!
2022 September 21, Brenden Morrow, “The daily gossip: Tom Hardy won a Jiu-Jitsu competition, Shakira is in the 'darkest hour of my life,' and more”, in The Week, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2023As the protector of Wallachia and Transylvania, [Vlad Dracula] was a far more bloodthirsty ruler than the infamous Queen Mary I, Mary Tudor, also known as Bloody Mary; she burned 280 religious dissenters at the stake during her reign. Those are rookie numbers to Dracula.
2022 October 23, Tony Sokol, “Dracula Stands Above All Other Vampires and Horror Icons”, in Den of Geek, archived from the original on 28 Nov 2023
Origin
A reference to Matthew McConaughey's character Mark Hanna in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, who advises protagonist Jordan Belfort to masturbate more frequently: "You gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket."
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
rookie numbers. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rookie%20numbers
“rookie numbers.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rookie%20numbers. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “rookie numbers,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rookie%20numbers.
Source: rookie numbers on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.