tenderfoot

plural tenderfeet · plural tenderfoots

1. CanadaUSAn inexperienced person; a novice.

   Synonyms: abecedarian, alphabetarian, apprentice, amateur, beginner, bun, colt, first-timer

2. historicalA newcomer or arriviste to the region in the American frontier (Old West and Wild West).

   Watson had risen so hurriedly that he had not been careful about his “tarp” and water had run into his bed. But that wouldn’t disconcert anybody but a tenderfoot.

   1914, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Houghton Mifflin Company, page 173

   2 more examples

   Up to the time, Ranse Foster had been a nobody in particular - a dude from the East, quietly inquisitive, moving from one shack town to another; just another tenderfoot[.]

   1949, Dorothy M. Johnson, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; in Indian Country, London: Corgi, 1961, page 91

   "Lavender Cowboy," a pseudo folk song, is a tale of futility. It tells of a tenderfoot "with only two hairs on his chest," whose heroic attempt to prove his manhood results in his death.

   1991 August 31, Rudy Grillo, “Color Me Gay”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 7, page 10

3. datedA Boy Scout of the lowest rank.