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View synonyms for neophyte

neophyte

[ nee-uh-fahyt ]

noun

  1. a beginner or novice:

    He's a neophyte at chess.

    Synonyms: tyro, greenhorn

  2. Roman Catholic Church. a novice.
  3. a person newly converted to a belief, as a heathen, heretic, or nonbeliever; proselyte.
  4. Primitive Church. a person newly baptized.


neophyte

/ ˌniːəʊˈfɪtɪk; ˈniːəʊˌfaɪt /

noun

  1. a person newly converted to a religious faith
  2. RC Church a novice in a religious order
  3. a novice or beginner


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Derived Forms

  • neophytic, adjective

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Other Words From

  • ne·o·phyt·ic [nee-, uh, -, fit, -ik], ne·o·phyt·ish [nee, -, uh, -fahy-tish], adjective
  • ne·o·phyt·ism [nee, -, uh, -fahy-tiz-, uh, m], noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of neophyte1

First recorded in 1540–50; from Late Latin neophytus “newly planted,” from Greek neóphytos; neo-, -phyte

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Word History and Origins

Origin of neophyte1

C16: via Church Latin from New Testament Greek neophutos recently planted, from neos new + phuton a plant

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Example Sentences

For the aficionado or the neophyte, Comics is a useful overview of a richly creative period in a burgeoning art.

Reagan is a political neophyte in a fairly conventional campaign for governor of California.

Southerland was a political neophyte who owned a string of funeral homes when he won his seat in 2010.

The other thing the film got wrong was the premise that David was a neophyte, better suited for interviewing the Bee Gees.

I will confess, with some shame, that I am a Saunders neophyte.

Assarac smiled with the good-humoured superiority of an adept condescending to the crude intelligence of a neophyte.

Beladon looked on his chief with the admiration of a neophyte for some grand professor of his art.

Selina, in the drawing-room, diligently fingered and classed brown-black pressed weeds of her neophyte's botany-folios.

"Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here," answered the laconic neophyte.

But if, on the one hand, we had lost the neophyte's fire, we had perhaps gained a little in tolerance.

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