initiate

1. 1.

   someone new to a field or activity

   Synonymsnovicebeginnertyrotiro

   Broaderunskilled person

   Narrowerabecedarianapprenticecublandlubbernewcomertenderfoottrainee
2. 2.

   someone who has been admitted to membership in a scholarly field

   Synonymslearned personpunditsavant

   Broaderscholar

   Narrowerpolymath
3. 3.

   people who have been introduced to the mysteries of some field or activity

   “it is very familiar to the initiate”

   Synonymsenlightened

   Antonymsuninitiate

   Broaderpeople

Other forms of initiate

plural

initiates·

past tense

initiated·

present participle

initiating·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about initiate

What does initiate mean?

initiate means "bring into being". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in initiate?

initiate has 4 syllables: in-it-i-ate. The stress falls on "it". In IPA it is /ˌɪˈnɪʃiˌeɪt/.

What is another word for initiate?

Close synonyms include originate, start, pioneer, induct, broach. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of initiate?

The recorded antonyms are uninitiate.

Is initiate a common word?

initiate is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with initiate?

95 words rhyme with initiate. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.