uninitiated

British  

/ ˌʌnɪˈnɪʃɪeɪtɪd /

adjective

1. 1. not having gained knowledge or experience of a particular subject or activity

   2. ( as collective noun ; preceded by the )

      the uninitiated

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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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

uninitiated

The idea is to have expert hairstylists train uninitiated or intimidated fathers on how to comb and braid their kids’ hair, using salon-type head mannequins but in a setting for bros.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026

For the uninitiated, Roxy is the women’s brand of Quiksilver, the legendary Australian company that began in 1969 and made board shorts that performed as well as they looked.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026

Seb Daly/Sportsfile: For the uninitiated, this is hurling - an Irish sport that is incredibly fast, very skilful and, as this image shows, highly physical.

From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025

For the uninitiated: What a cane seems to do is take a load off, even though you carry it on only one side.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025

The names of the tunnels alone—the Variable-Density Tunnel, the Free-Flight Tunnel, the Two-Foot Smoke-Flow Tunnel, the Eleven- Inch High-Speed Tunnel—challenged the uninitiated to imagine the combination of pressure, velocity, and dimension that resided therein.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly