rookienoun/ˈɹʊki/

• 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

  A type of firecracker, used by farmers to scare rooks.

rookieadj/ˈɹʊki/

• 1

  Non-professional; amateur

  • The game was going well until I made that rookie mistake.
  • the rookiest of rookie mistakes

rookieverb/ˈɹʊki/

• 1

  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. […]'
• 2

  hobbieslifestylesportsTo 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.