neophyte
Syllables: ne·o·phyte/ˈniː.əˌfaɪt/
neophyte noun: a beginner; a person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief.
Noun
neophyte (plural neophytes)
- A beginner; a person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief.
- A convert's enthusiasm for his new religion is greater than that of a person who is born in it. Vegetarianism was then a new cult in England, and likewise for me, because, as we have seen, I had gone there a convinced meat-eater, and was intellectually converted to vegetarianism later. Full of the...1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, chapter XVII, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat...
- In this scene Lupita, the neophyte, is counselled by more weathered professionals about the rules and regulations of whoring.1980, Journal of Spanish Studies: twentieth century, volume 8, Kansas State University, page 95
- Synonyms:
- beginner, newbie, newcomer, starter, novice, rookie, tyro, abecedarian, alphabetarian, apprentice
- A novice (recent convert); a new convert or proselyte; a new monk.
- The neophyte was given a new name in place of the baptismal one, usually of an evil and revolting character, and this was written in blood in the Devil's book, the covers of which were bound in the skin of unbaptised infants.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 107
- Among the early Christians, and still among the Roman Catholics, one who has recently embraced the Christian faith, and been admitted to baptism, especially those converts from heathenism or Judaism.
- A plant species recently introduced to an area (in contrast to archaeophyte, a long-established introduced species).
- Antonyms:
- archaeophyte
neophyte meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
neophyte in Tamil
- அனுபவமற்றவர், கத்துக்குட்டி, பயிற்சிபெறுபவர், புதுப்புதலன், புதியன், புதுமாணவர்
neophyte in Urdu
- اناڑی, مبتدی, نوآموز, نومذہب, نووارد
neophyte in Bengali
- নবদীক্ষিত
neophyte in Malayalam
- novice, novitiate, postulant
- നൂതനമതാവലംബി, പുതുക്രിസ്ത്യാനി, പുത്തൻകൂറ്റുകാരൻ, നവവിദ്യാർത്ഥി, മഠത്തിൽ ചേരാൻ പോകുന്നയാൾ, ബാലശിഷ്യൻ
- beginner, learner, novice
- നവാഗതൻ, ജോലിപരിചയിക്കുന്നവൻ, കന്നിക്കാരൻ, പ്രാരംഭപരിശീല ഘട്ടത്തിലിരിക്കുന്നൻ, വിരുന്നൻ, നവച്ഛാത്രൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- neophyte in Persian
- تازهکار tâze-kâr
Examples of neophyte in a sentence
- Full of the neophyte's zeal for vegetarianism, I decided to start a vegetarian club in my locality, Bayswater.1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, chapter XVII, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the...
- The big story on Tuesday night was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the 28-year-old political neophyte who pulled off the upset of the 2018 election in New York’s 14th district.2018 June 28, Chris Cillizza, “The Democrats’ lost generation”, in CNN, archived from the original on 11 Sep 2018:
- The purpose of sharing these accounts – particularly during Women’s History Month – is to show that women, like men, can grow from bumbling neophytes to competent leaders.2019 March 17, Swanee Hunt, “My career: From bumbling neophyte to pioneering diplomat”, in CNN, archived from the original on 16 May 2024:
Synonyms of neophyte
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of neophyte
| plural | neophytes |
|---|
Origin of neophyte
Borrowed from Latin neophytus, from Ancient Greek νεόφυτος (neóphutos, “newly planted”), from νέος (néos, “new”) + φυτόν (phutón, “plant, child”). By surface analysis, neo- + -phyte.
Words formed from neophyte
Questions about neophyte
- What does neophyte mean?
- Neophyte means a beginner; a person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief.
- What is neophyte in Tamil?
- Neophyte in Tamil is அனுபவமற்றவர், கத்துக்குட்டி, பயிற்சிபெறுபவர். See Neophyte meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use neophyte in a sentence?
- Full of the neophyte's zeal for vegetarianism, I decided to start a vegetarian club in my locality, Bayswater.
- What part of speech is neophyte?
- Neophyte is a noun.
- How do you pronounce neophyte?
- Neophyte is pronounced /ˈniː.əˌfaɪt/.
- What is the plural of neophyte?
- The plural of neophyte is neophytes.
Words near neophyte in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: neophyte (page history and authors); neophyte (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); neophyte (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); neophyte (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); neophyte (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-neophyte.wav.
Cite this entry: “neophyte.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/neophyte. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.