Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An untrained or inexperienced recruit, as in the army or police.
  • noun An inexperienced person; a novice.
  • noun Sports A first-year player, especially in a professional sport.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A recruit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An inexperienced recruit, especially in the police or armed forces.
  • noun A novice.
  • noun An athlete either new to the sport or to a team or in his first year of professional competition, especially said of baseball, basketball, hockey and American football players.
  • noun UK A type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.
  • adjective non-professional; amateur

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an awkward and inexperienced youth

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps alteration of recruit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From recruit and -ie, thought to be an alteration of recruit, another reasonable origin is Dutch broekie (short for broekvent ("a boy still in short trousers")), a common term for a shipmate.

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Examples

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  • "Habs happy with rookie goalie's play" - Vancouver Sun headline, 11-30-7

    January 11, 2008