Today's word is Neophyte, spelled N-E-O-P-H-Y-T-E.
Neophyte is a noun.
A neophyte is a person who has just started learning or doing something.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Den of Geek by Alec Bojalad.
First premiering in 2006, Ugly Betty built up a devoted fan base.
The series, which is now streaming on Netflix, started Ferrera as the titular ugly Betty Suarez,
of braces wearing 22-year-old fashion Neophyte from Queens.
Neophyte is hardly a new addition to the English language.
It's been part of the English vocabulary since the 14th century.
It traces back through late Latin to the Greek word neo-phitos,
meaning newly planted or newly converted.
These Greek and Latin roots were directly transplanted into the early English uses of neophyte,
which first referred to a person newly converted to a religion or cause.
By the 1600s, neophyte had gained a more general sense of a beginner or novice.
Today,
you might consider it a formal elder sibling of such recent informal coinages as newbie and noob.
With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sakolowski.
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