novitiate
2
9.9
- noun
- /nəˈvɪʃiˌeɪt/
- Specialized
:
novicio
- As one might expect, the women here are hardly a cross-section of contemporary American Catholic women; a number of its students enter the novitiate each year.
Examples
-
Now I knew I wanted to enter the novitiate, and I believed Jesus was calling me into a deeper relationship at this time.
Blog text (31) -
All novitiates choose a new name before they enter the convent.
-
- Yes, I may enter my novitiate.
-
I want to go to the novitiate...
Blog text (31) -
I'm still just a novitiate.
-
Having survived the humiliating novitiate year, the remaining five years of my major seminary studies, mostly in philosophy and theology, went well.
Academic text (2008) -
Why didn't you just leave the novitiate rather than be tormented by your own uncertainties?
-
Some daughters of artisans and craftworkers became novitiates or prospective deaconesses as a step toward becoming teachers, nurses, or orphanage "mothers."
Academic text (1990) -
St. Paul's had been built in the mid-thirties to house and groom over three hundred high school seminarians from around the Midwest, but by 1978 there were only four novitiates left.
Fiction book (2002) -
After some time in the community, she felt ready to embrace her role as a novitiate and learn more about monastic life.
Synonyms
8
7.1
A person living in a religious community to learn before taking vows
How Advanced
- Specialized
2
9.9
- Formal
2
9.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Novitiate comes from the Latin root nov- meaning 'new', the same root you see in novice and novel. It originally named a 'new' member learning the life, so a novitiate is a person who is new to a religious community and not yet a full member.