Newcomer
nounA person who has recently arrived in a place, group, or activity.
How to spell newcomer
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce newcomer
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does newcomer mean?
- nounA person who has recently arrived in a place, group, or activity.
Newcomer in a sentence
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The office welcomed the newcomer with a tour of the building.
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As a newcomer to the town, she relied on her neighbours for directions.
Where does newcomer come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a transparent English compound, built from the everyday words 'new' and 'comer', the latter being an agent form of the verb 'come'. Both halves are thoroughly Germanic: 'new' descends from Old English niwe, meaning 'fresh' or 'recently made', while 'come' goes back to Old English cuman, 'to move toward, to arrive'. By the late Middle Ages writers were joining the two to describe a person who had only recently arrived in a place, and the word is recorded from the 1400s onward. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: the silent final 'e' of 'come' is kept when the agent suffix '-er' is added, giving 'comer', so the word reads new-come-r rather than the tempting but wrong 'newcommer' with a doubled m.
How the word is built
- new (recently arrived)
- come (Old English cuman, to arrive)
- -er (agent suffix: one who does)
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