Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An inexperienced or immature person, especially one who is easily deceived.
- n. A newcomer, especially one who is unfamiliar with the ways of a place or group.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A raw, inexperienced person; one unacquainted with the world or with local customs, and therefore easily imposed upon.
Wiktionary
- n. an inexperienced person; a novice, beginner or newcomer
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A raw, inexperienced person; one easily imposed upon.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an awkward and inexperienced youth
Etymologies
- Unconfirmed. Hypotheses include: (Wiktionary)
- Middle English greene horn, horn of a newly slaughtered animal : grene, green; see green + horn, horn; see horn. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At the word greenhorn Abe Potash leaned forward and struck the table with his open hand.”
Abe and Mawruss Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter
“Being a "greenhorn" -- i.e., just off the boat -- was a put down back when your professor, PT, was coming up.”
“A fool of a greenhorn was a-managin 'of the thing, an' this is the result.”
The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes Or, the secret of the island cave
“I inquired what he meant, was first called a greenhorn for not knowing, and then had it explained to me.”
“Renee W. said, "Sometimes a greenhorn is a dark horse and even a nova.”
“For Jews in New York, eating in Chinese restaurants signified that one was not a provincial or parochial Eastern European Jew, not a "greenhorn" or hick.”
“Anyhow that means a sort of 'greenhorn' I suppose.”
“I can't no more wear my 'greenhorn' shawl going out with an American.”
“This new wave of hope swept aside the fact that she was the "greenhorn" janitress, that she was twenty-two and dowryless, and, according to the traditions of her people, condemned to be shelved aside as an unmated thing – a creature of pity and ridicule.”
“One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to act as surety for a loan.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘greenhorn’.
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I Am A Starfish. I Speak With Paint.
List title totally stolen from she. Right, the stock entry for this list should be a two-word phrase where one of the words denotes a colour; even better if the expression has some metaphoric value...
black dog, tangerine dream, orange roughy, blue moon, blackguard, white house, purple rain, grey nurse, green thumb, yellow fever, sacre bleu, palo verde and 159 more...
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Open List: Greens
A lits of greens: cooked leafy vegetables; pigments, paint names, compound words, etc; words and phrases that pertain to or contain "green". Please add your favorites!
See this list f...greenery, collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, green shoots, viridian green, malachite green, sap green, green grocer, radish greens, beet greens, spring green and 282 more...
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green phrases/ words
green,how its used
green acres, green activist, green alder, green-and-gold, green and pale, green and wan, green anole, green apron, green architecture, green arrow, green ash, green audit and 393 more...
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WF - nominal compounds (figurative)
An extensive list I have been working on for quite some time. Feel free to add more of the kind if you miss any.
brainstorming, upside, downside, goldplating, bikeshedding, mudslinging, downgrading, headhunter, streamlining, mainstreaming, gerrymandering, frontloading and 503 more...
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GRE
droll, dyspeptic, ebullient, ardor, edify, efficacy, malinger, mannered, martinet, maudlin, mendacious, mendicant and 101 more...
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EN-HU - fun and challenge to translate
Highly descriptive coinages (either in EN or HU) which are difficult to translate between the two languages. If - as a simultaneous interpreter - you get them right on the move, you deserve to be p...
backpfeifengesicht, a wise head on yo..., bad hair day, big cheese, blame shift, cherry picking, intellectual heav..., lack nunchi, schlimazl, cash cow, cherry boy, ass munch and 65 more...
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A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
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elij's Words
diegesis, intrinsic, semantic, salience, nonchalant, infosthetics, ambiguous, altruism, cynical, abstruse, vatic, encomium and 137 more...
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Sat Vocabulary List
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 2155 more...
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whaling terms
Terms defined in the glossary of Clifford W. Ashley's "Yankee Whaler".
advance, adze, after house, after oar, agent, air up, alow, ambergris, apeak, article, away, bailer and 299 more...
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chromatic phrases
blue movie, brown study, purple prose, rosy scenario, golden mean, eminence grise, white nights, bronze age, silver bullet, orange juice, black death, technicolor yawn and 188 more...
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New words, not to be confused with th...
maladroit, aphasia, delphinium, bromide, greenhorn, just deserts, loth, supplanted, steeplechase, steeple, annex, vestments and 236 more...
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not the sum of their parts
words formed as the combination of two or more other words, but which have a meaning unrelated to either of the constituent words
earwig, ladyfinger, pantywaist, dovetail, eavesdropper, blackmail, greenhorn, mango, carpet, penny farthing, farthingale, damage and 118 more...
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The DEADLIEST Catch
All the words I keep hearing now that Season 4 has launched. WOOOO!!
Edit: Amended list to include other fishing terms (not necessarily crab-fishing, not necessarily heard on Deadliest...bering sea, launch, pot, bait, icy, dutch harbor, processing, greenhorn, coast guard, survival suit, opilio, king crab and 65 more...
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the blood jet is poetry
A selection of frequent or favourite words from Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, as part of my bid to read them all. Quotes can be found on each citation page.
whiteness, zen, dryad, rook, tulip, kindness, troublous, portico, prospect, blight, havoc, millrace and 62 more...
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tiffani's Words
commentariat, hibakusha, nonpareil, nonplussed, jerrybuilt, lodestar, soi-disant, rout, shtick, pols, supplicant, diffident and 49 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for greenhorn.
ofravens None of that greenhorn lot matched her bright crown
from "The Queen's Complaint," Sylvia Plath Apr 14, 2008