novitiate

From Middle French novitiat, from Medieval Latin novitiatus (“a novitiate”), from Latin novicius, novitius (“a novice”), from novus (“new”).

• IPA^(key): /nəˈvɪʃi.ət/

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• Hyphenation: no‧vi‧ti‧ate

novitiate (plural novitiates)

1. A novice.
2. The period during which a novice of a religious order undergoes training.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter X, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 214:

     Three weeks after the departure of the Mandevilles, all Naples flocked to witness the profession of a young Englishwoman, a dispensation having been obtained for the novitiate.

3. The place where a novice lives and studies.

• “novitiate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “novitiate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “novitiate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• evitation