noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of trainee
Explanation
If you're a trainee, you're being taught to do a new job. If you're hired at your local grocery store, you'll likely spend some time as a trainee before you're allowed to work the cash register on your own. Whenever someone goes through training, especially for a new job or skill, they can be called a trainee. If you're learning a new computer coding language, you might be a Python or Java trainee. And if you're in your first week at a coffee shop job, you're probably still a barista trainee. Trainee dates back to the mid-19th century, from the verb train, "instruct."
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.
See Examples For:
Willey started his career as a trainee for the Reuters news agency and covered the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
In 1975, he became a trainee cable installer, climbing poles and stringing cables.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
There, he became a trainee under Pledis Entertainment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
If I say to a trainee, “You’re flinching,” that puts it in his head.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
Cassiodorus, writing in the 6th century in southern Italy for the guidance of trainee scribes, included punctuation in his Institutions Divinarum et Saecularium Litterarum, recommending “clear pausing in well-regulated delivery”.
From "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Author
In the classroom, trainees crowded around instructor Luo Duocheng as he demonstrated slicing a slab of beef, marinating it, and skewering the meat to form identical kebabs.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
CNN reported that “around 60% of unvaccinated trainees at Lackland initially declined the flu shot.”
From Salon ● Jun. 30, 2026
She quickly discovered that available pelvic models have hard plastic shells around the cervix where providers practice injecting; this prevents trainees from getting the necessary tactile feedback to learn where to inject.
From Slate ● Jun. 7, 2026
The government said it meant about 65,000 trainees will get access to the fastest-growing industries in the country.
From BBC ● Apr. 14, 2026
We were seven trainees in that year’s group and each one of us was being carefully prepared to uphold the majesty of the Shell Company in one or another remote tropical country.
From "Boy: Tales of a Childhood" by Roald Dahl
Definitions 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.
