Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(mainly US) newly recruited, unfledged, unsophisticated.

1916		J. Lait ‘The Septagon’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 11: Alec was a rookie reporter.
1917		A. Baer Rookies Are Wonders Till They Come North 13 Mar. [synd. cartoon] Rook pitcher packs the bases and his traveling bag at the same time.
1929		L. Thomas Woodfill of the Regulars 222: They came near bein’ the rookiest bunch of rookies in this man’s army, and the rookiest of the lot was a wop from the anthracite country.
1934		C.A. Freeman ‘A Night-Side Prod’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 29/1: Lanky kid in a rooky blouse.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 44: One time a rookie cop called me mister.
1955		‘Blackie’ Audett Rap Sheet 197: The guard lieutenant on the dock got suspicious seeing a technical sergeant in with these rookie A.W.O.Ls.
1961		K. Vonnegut ‘Find Me a Dream’ in Bagombo Snuff Box (1999) 233: As Works manager, Arvin Border told every rookie engineer, ‘If you don’t like sewer pipe, you won’t like Creon.’.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 83: From the outset, the Big L treated me with more than the little respect usually shown to a rookie con.
1981		A.K. Shulman On the Stroll 4: The shopping-bag lady known to locals as owl (and to the rookie cop patrolling the station as, simply, ‘one of your cleaner types’).
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 63: When Guido had been a rookie carabiniero he had had a beat in the old twelfth district.
1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) xxiii: Her first boyfriend, a rookie cop, who raped her.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 9: No such responsibility was ever dealt to rookie callers.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 293: He’s a rookie gofer.
2014		N. Kolicki ‘Poachers’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] My first grow set-up used the opaque black barrels [...] to house the growing medium. Rook move.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 5: ‘See that?’ the driver said to his rookie colleague.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] It was a rooky error.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 30: Rookie mistake, reaching barehanded into a crevice.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 530: [A] toffee-nosed rookie editor showing off her trade jargon.