Newbie

How to spell newbie

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce newbie

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does newbie mean?

1. nounAn informal term for a person who is new to an activity, group, or skill and still inexperienced.

Newbie in a sentence

• As a complete newbie, she asked her colleagues to explain the filing system.

• The gym runs a gentle class aimed at every nervous newbie on their first visit.

Where does newbie come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

At its heart this is just the everyday word 'new', which descends from the Old English niwe, a thoroughly Germanic word meaning 'recent, fresh, not previously existing', with relatives across the Germanic languages such as Dutch nieuw and German neu. The casual suffix tacked on to make 'newbie' is the same playful, affectionate ending heard in informal coinages, and it turns the adjective into a friendly label for a person. The word is a piece of modern colloquial slang that surfaced in the second half of the twentieth century, and many trace it to military and later computer and internet culture, where established members liked to mark out a 'new' arrival. Some commentators link it to older school slang like 'new boy' or 'newie', so the precise route is not fully settled. What is clear is the spelling trap: the silent base is plain 'new', and the ending is the unexpected '-bie' rather than the look-alike '-by', which is what catches writers out.

How the word is built

• new (Germanic root meaning recent or fresh)
• -bie (informal diminutive noun suffix)