rookie

[ rook-ee ]

noun

1. an athlete playing their first season as a member of a professional sports team:

   The rookie replaced the injured regular at first base.

2. a raw recruit, as in the army or on a police force.
3. a novice; tyro.

rookie

/ ˈrʊkɪ /

noun

1. informal.
   an inexperienced person or newcomer, esp a raw recruit in the army

Word History and Origins

Origin of rookie¹

1890–95; alteration of recruit; -y ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of rookie¹

C20: changed from recruit

Example Sentences

The rookie has allowed three or more goals in seven of his nine starts.

From Washington Post

It’s hard especially when you’re a rookie in your first year and you want to work out, want to improve and it can’t happen.

From Washington Post

Patience is in order all around given the many challenges facing rookies during this unusual season, including their shortened post-draft acclimation.

From Washington Post

To narrow the pool further, only seven first-round quarterbacks in that span have won a playoff game and none of them did it as a rookie.

From Washington Post

Haskins started seven games as a rookie and showed improvement late in the year.

From Washington Post

The Lion Air captain had left his rookie copilot to make the landing until he realized he was in trouble.

From The Daily Beast

They castigated the captain, a 48-year-old Indonesian, and his rookie copilot, a 24-year-old Indian.

From The Daily Beast

One of the rookie officers, Peter Liang, was walking with a flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other.

From The Daily Beast

A 28-year-old gunned down in a dark, New York City hallway by a rookie cop who apparently made a fatal mistake.

From The Daily Beast

Still, he was locked into his rookie contract, and had to ride out two more dysfunctional seasons of the show.

From The Daily Beast

What's all that nonsense Ferrers gives us about the old days when he was such a rookie from civil life?

From Project Gutenberg

A Reservist is a dug-out, a recruit a rookie, and a veteran an old sweat.

From Project Gutenberg

No, admitted the rookie reluctantly, yo nevah tol me nuthin.

From Project Gutenberg

Some of the happier memories of my rookie days die with him.

From Project Gutenberg

McRae had taken him when he was a raw rookie and given him his chance with the Giants to show what he could do.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• colt
• newcomer

About This Word

What does Rookie of the Year mean?

Rookie of the Year is an award given to an athlete judged most accomplished in the first season of their sport.

Where did the word rookie come from?

The word rookie is no newcomer to the English language. The term is recorded as early as the 1860s for a “new recruit” to the military or a police force. Some think it was the very word recruit that was shortened into rookie. Others see influence in an old verb rook, “to cheat” someone, supposedly alluding to how old-timers can easily trick gullible noobs.

Whatever its exact origins, rookie took the field in the early 1900s, when the term referred to “new members of a sports teams,” particularly professionals. (It’s around this same time rookie started naming any “beginner.”) Early in its career, rookie saw special use in baseball, America’s great pastime and apparent progenitor of Rookie of the Year as a phrase and praise.

Who was the first Rookie of the Year?

A 1921 feature in the sports pages of Florida’s The Pensacola Journal christened Riggs Stephenson—a 23-year-old in his first year playing second base for Cleveland Indians—as a “most remarkable rookie of the year.” Baseball wouldn’t formally honor any sluggers as Rookie of the Year until the 1940s though.

That year, the Chicago chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) presented its own Rookie of the Year prize and did so until 1947, when it ceded to the BBWAA’s national award, officially recognized by Major League Baseball (MLB). Its first honoree was Brooklyn Dodgers’ #42, Jackie Robinson, a legend inside the ballpark and out for breaking baseball’s color barrier. The MLB named its Rookie of the Year award the Jackie Robinson Award in his honor in 1987.

Basketball wasn’t far behind … courtside sportswriters named a pro basketball player Rookie of the Year starting in the 1947–1948 season before the National Basketball Association (NBA) inaugurated its official award in 1952–53 season. Called the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy (whose namesake was the rookie coach for the Philadelphia Warriors), the NBA Rookie of the Year has crowned some of the giants of the game, including Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James.

Other sports variously award Rookie of the Year awards including Major League Soccer, NASCAR, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and Women’s Professional Soccer. In many cases, including for the MLB and NBA, a Rookie of the Year is chosen based on total points as awarded by sportswriters and sportscasters who cover the sport.

Different fields also give out Rookie of the Year awards, notably including the Korean Music Awards, whose Rookie of the Year has been lauding best new artists in South Korea since 2004. Since 2011, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has named a first-time swimsuit model Rookie of the Year, with Ashley Graham making news as the magazine’s first plus-size model to appear in the pages as its 2016 Rookie of the Year.

What are famous uses of the term Rookie of the Year?

In the 2017–18 NBA season, the two leading nominees, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Ben Simmons and Utah Jazz’s Donovan “Spida” Mitchell, jawed over the very definition of rookie. Mitchell playfully trash-talked Simmons by claiming his competitor was not a true rookie, as an injury benched Simmons during what was technically his first season in 2016. Spida, ever the acrobat on the hardwood, showed off his reference skills when he sported an Adidas hoodie boasting our Dictionary.com definition of rookie. The experts countered that, while 2017–18 was technically the second season for Simmons, he still qualified as a rookie because he didn’t play a single second of the shot clock that year.

Donovan Mitchell’s hoodie though lmao 👀 pic.twitter.com/VFbeugz77i

— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) April 10, 2018

Rookie of the Year has also captured the popular imagination, such as in the 1993 feel-good film Rookie of the Year, following a Little Leaguer’s (Thomas Ian Nicholas) foray into the big leagues, based on the 1952 Roogie’s Bump. North Carolina-based indie rockers took Rookie of the Year as their band-name when they formed in 2002.

How to use the term Rookie of the Year

Rookie of the Year Winner can name a specific winner or the contest in general. It’s most often used in the context of various annual sports awards, from the amateur to professional. Since at least the late 2000s, Rookie of the Year has been abbreviated as ROTY or “#ROTY” on social media.

2017 #Indy500 Rookie of the Year @alo_oficial holds the Indianapolis 500 records for the driver to complete the fastest first 100 miles (40 laps) at 214.828 MPH and 125 miles (50 laps) and 215.990 MPH.

— Indy 500 History (@Indy500History) June 5, 2018

However, other disciplines and institutions like to name Rookies of the Year to distinguish first-year students, employees, or other novices and celebrate their achievements.

EMPLOYEE FEATURE WEDNESDAY: Today we feature Brian ‘B Smooth’ Smith, our 2017 Rookie of the Year and one of the consistent names on our leader board. Brian has been with IEL for 1.5 years and enjoys building lasting relationships with his customers. #iel #workhardplayhard pic.twitter.com/33N1zCo1Jf

— iel_llc (@IEL_LLC) June 6, 2018

More loosely, people may refer to any beginner that is distinguished as a Rookie of the Year, as Joelle James so sings about a newly famous lover in her 2017 track “Rookie of the Year” with Chris Brown: “You’re my rookie of the year / All the odds are on you.”

More examples of Rookie of the Year:

“Just ask Jazmine Reeves, 2014 Rookie of the Year for the NWSL’s Boston Breakers, who told The Atlantic she left professional soccer because she was unable to get by on her $11,000 salary.”
—Alicia Lorene Johnson, Bustle, June 2015

Note

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.