apprentice
Pluralapprentices
Verbapprentices, apprenticing, apprenticed
Pluralapprentices
Formsapprentices, apprenticing, apprenticed
- 1A person who is being trained for work, especially in a skilled trade.
She started as an apprentice in a cabinetmaking shop and now runs a business of her own.
The shipyard hopes to employ two hundred apprentices by the end of the decade.
Similartrainee, learner, novice
Note
The everyday trainee sense came into Middle English as apprentis, apprentyse or apprentice, from Old French aprentis, a form of aprentif, itself built on the verb aprendre and traceable through Late Latin apprendō to Classical Latin apprehendō. The noun also works as a modifier, naming what is set up for trainees, as in an apprentice training school.
- 2To place someone under the care and supervision of a master, so that the master can teach them a trade or business.
His mother apprenticed him to a printer when he was thirteen, since the family could not afford school.
She wanted to apprentice herself to the finest violin maker in the city.
Note
Three people can stand in this verb: the arranger, the learner as object, and the master after to, as in his father apprenticed him to a silk merchant. The passive drops the arranger; the reflexive has learners place themselves, even outside the trades, as when Robert Reich writes that Trump apprenticed himself to Roy Cohn. Unlike serving as someone's apprentice, the object here is the learner, not the master.
- 3To serve as someone's apprentice, training under them in their line of work.
Many new tattoo artists apprentice an established artist for a year or more before taking their own clients.
As a teenager she apprenticed the village blacksmith, working the bellows and learning to shape horseshoes.
- 4A person bound by indentures or another legal agreement to serve a tradesperson or other master for a fixed term in order to learn the art or trade the master is obliged to teach.
Under the terms of his indenture, the apprentice owed his master seven years of work and obedience.
The master weaver took in three apprentices, promising to feed, house, and teach them the trade.
Note
In historical writing the word names a legal status as well as a stage of training. The bond ran both ways: the apprentice owed service for a fixed term, and the master was bound to teach the art or trade. Indentures, master and bound are its natural companions, and leaving early meant breaking an agreement. The everyday trainee meaning carries no such legal tie.
Less common meaning
- 5A beginner in a subject, someone who is not yet well versed in it.
In politics he remained an apprentice, easily outmaneuvered by the older hands in his party.
Beside the veteran collectors we were mere apprentices, unable to tell a forged stamp from a real one.
Similarnovice, beginner, newcomer, learner
Oppositeexpert, veteran, master
Note
The figurative beginner now sounds old-fashioned, and present-day writing usually says beginner, or newbie in casual talk. If you reach for it, name the field (an apprentice in politics, an apprentice at the chessboard) so the context rules out a real trade. On its own, apprentice will be heard as the workplace trainee meaning.
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Origin
From Middle English apprentice (also spelled apprentesse, apprentyse, apprentis), borrowed from Old French aprentis, the plural of aprentif. This came from the Old French verb aprendre, from Late Latin apprendō, which in turn comes from Classical Latin apprehendō.