Novice - novitiate

With the decline in knowledge of Christianity and the church, the two nouns novice and novitiate are increasingly being confused. They are distinct: do not confuse them yourself.

• A novice is 'a learner'; 'someone who is beginning in new surroundings', or 'beginning a new way of life'. Since its use in 5th century Latin (in the form novicius), it was predominantly used of someone spending a probationary period in a monastery preparatory to becoming a monk, or nun. These candidates for the religious life were being assessed for their suitability, as well as confirming the strength of their own vocation.
  • This meaning has been extended to 'a beginner' or 'learner' in any field (or its equivalent: a novice racehorse is one which has not yet won a race: novice races are held only for horses that have never yet won).
• Novitiate is better used as a more abstract noun, either as 'the period during which a novice is still 'on probation', or learning'; or 'the state of being still a learner', or 'not yet being a fully qualified person in the field'. The word is also used in a specialised sense to mean 'the house, or quarters, in which religious novices live within the broader monastery or nunnery'.
  • Although novitiate has been used since at least the sixteenth century to mean 'novice', you are advised not to do so. Use only novice to mean a person, and use novitiate only for the more abstract meanings - the condition and the period.

It is possible that novitiate in this sense should be thought of as an adjective formed under the influence of a Latin -ed participle form, and means 'one who has been made a novice', 'one who has been novice-d'.

Do not muddle the spellings of the two words.

• Novice is always spelled with a '-c-';
• Novitiate is always spelled with a '-t-' - that is, when it is being spelled correctly. It has been spelled, wrongly, as noviciate, by both students and journalists.