apprentice
/əˈprɛntɪs
/noun
1A person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed period at low wages: [as modifier]: an apprentice electrician...
- It doesn't matter how much money we give employers to take on apprentices in tradition trades - in gas fitting, in tiling, in welding and carpentry.
- It is often asserted that by keeping wages low for apprentices, employers will automatically take more on.
- This language has an old-fashioned ring, and was designed for a minor becoming an apprentice in a skilled trade.
Synonyms
trainee, learner, probationer, tyro, novice, mentee, neophyte, raw recruit, fledgling, new boy/girl, novitiate;
pupil, student;
beginner, starter
North American informal rookie, greenhorn, tenderfoot
1.1 [usually as modifier] A beginner: an apprentice barman...
- Trainers use apprentice riders because they get a five-pound weight advantage.
- Rose, 26, of State College, Pennsylvania, won the Eclipse Award outstanding apprentice jockey in 2001.
- The station was loaded up with apprentice bingo callers and Algonquin grads who were grateful to have a job.
verb [with object] (usually be apprenticed to)
1Employ (someone) as an apprentice: Edward was apprenticed to a printer...
- In 1706 he was apprenticed to a printer (as his father could not afford to enter him for the Church), and in 1715 he was admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company.
- At about the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a sign painter in whose shop his work included painting tinned cans.
- Following the death of his brother Geoff, in 1947, he was apprenticed to his father, a renowned blacksmith's farrier.
1.1 [no object] North American Serve as an apprentice: she apprenticed with midwives in San Francisco...
- He founded his own business in the mid 1970s, and by 2004, at least fifteen master artists currently heading their own studios had apprenticed under him.
- Either you apprentice with a Master or inherit the job.
- What am I apprenticing for that would require… this?
Origin
Middle English: from Old French aprentis (from apprendre 'learn', from Latin apprehendere 'apprehend'), on the pattern of words ending in -tis, -tif, from Latin -tivus (see -ive).