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novice

1. One who is new in any business, profession, or calling; one unacquainted or unskilled; one yet in the rudiments; a beginner; a tyro. I am young; a novice in the trade. (Dryden)

2. One newly received into the church, or one newly converted to the Christian faith.

3. One who enters a religious house, whether of monks or nuns, as a probationist. No poore cloisterer, nor no novys. (Chaucer)

Origin: F, from L. Novicius, novitius, new, from novus new. See New, and cf. Novitious.