uninitiated
Britishadjective
Explanation
Someone who's uninitiated is inexperienced or lacking an insider's knowledge of a subject. For the uninitiated viewer, experimental films are just plain strange. If you come into a new situation without any background information or direct experience, you're uninitiated. An uninitiated guest of the Queen will be confused about when to bow or curtsy and which fork to use at lunch. For an uninitiated reader, the names and faces in a celebrity gossip magazine will be meaningless. To be initiated is to have secret or special knowledge. Add the prefix un-, and you get this adjective meaning "lacking knowledge."
Vocabulary lists containing uninitiated
Flying Lessons & Other Stories
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Not Nothing
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Inexperienced
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To the uninitiated it might seem logical that the Seagulls must have spent big, investing in players ready for the first team.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
To the uninitiated, it can seem downright loony.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
We mentioned Harp in a newsletter earlier this week, and my colleague Heather Schwedel wrote a primer for the uninitiated that was among Slate’s most-read articles this week.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026
In the years after the swap meet, my special interest became finding Prada accessories that prominently featured hardware, which was easier than the uninitiated might imagine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
But no job is as easy as it looks to the uninitiated.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
