# apprentice

Pronunciation: US say "uh-PREN-tis" /əˈpɹɛntɪs/; UK

## Noun

1. A person who is being trained for work, especially in a skilled trade.
   - Simple: A person who is being trained for a job, especially one that needs special skills.
   - _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._
4. A 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.
   - Simple: In the past, someone tied by a contract to work for a master for a set time and learn their trade.
   - _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._

## Verb

2. To place someone under the care and supervision of a master, so that the master can teach them a trade or business.
   - Simple: To place someone with a master who looks after them and teaches them the skills of a job 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._
3. To serve as someone's apprentice, training under them in their line of work.
   - Simple: To work under someone as a learner while they teach you their job.
   - _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._

## Noun

5. A beginner in a subject, someone who is not yet well versed in it. *(dated)*
   - Simple: A person who is new to a subject and does not know much about it yet.
   - _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._

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/apprentice (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).