rookie

noun

1. An inexperienced recruit, especially in the police or armed forces.

   “Corbett is convinced it was a systemic failure: "The Thames Train was driven by a rookie driver who had only just come into the job. It is, in fact, difficult to run through a red light, because you have to cancel the Automatic Warning System (AWS) and so on. But he continued for 700 yards and he accelerated, which no one understands why.”

2. A novice.
3. An athlete either new to the sport or to a team or in his/her first year of professional competition, especially said of baseball, basketball, hockey and American football players.
4. (British)A type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.

adj

1. Non-professional; amateur

   “The game was going well until I made that rookie mistake.”

   “the rookiest of rookie mistakes”

verb

1. (intransitive)To be a rookie; to go through one's inexperienced learning period in a job, team, or organization.

   “In 1977 he rookied as a smokejumper with the International Forest Fire Systems, a private firm that contracted smokejumping services to Canada's Northwest Territories.”

   “As they go ton the stretch of road that ran between the park and the 5 Freeway, Stu said 'Schoelkopf gave me the kind of lecture I haven't heard since I rookied. […]'”

   “He rookied in 1980 and settled in to play right field for the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1987 and was critical to the Tigers winning the 1984 World Series against the San Diego Padres.”

   “Grath and I had joined the Iron Bandits MC the same year; pledged together, rookied together.”

2. (transitive)To haze one or more rookies as an initiation ritual.

   “Great was my surprise when I found that I had been "rookied" in for a policing-up detail with no chance to "allez."”

   “There is none of that 'rookying stuff' but they don't pay any attention to you either, and that is worse.”

   “I was rookied in women's (ice) hockey mid-winter. I was made to strip nude and walk into McDonald's and order a big Mac.”

   “Last year when I was 'rookied' they had this whole agenda where you had to do a ' shot ' [ of alcohol ] and run around and do this little circuit [ race ] —the idea was to get everyone to puke that night or just get totally hammered ... the majority of the people [rookies] were knocked out [physically unable to continue] by ten o'clock.”

   “As long as a player is a rookie, they are susceptible to being "rookied,” although initiations typically occur at the beginning of the season, or just before.”