tyro

See also: Tyro

English

Alternative forms

• tiro

Etymology

From Latin tīrō (“young soldier, recruit”).

In Medieval Latin the term was often spelt as tyro whence the English spelling is derived.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪɹəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪɹoʊ/

Noun

tyro (plural tyros or tyroes)

1. A beginner; a novice. [from 17th c.]

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:beginner

   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], The Last Man. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:

     I ask if in the calm of their measured reveries, if in the deep meditations which fill their hours, they fill the ecstasy of a youthful tyro in the school of pleasure.

   • 1843, [John Ruskin], “Preface to the second edition”, in Modern Painters […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page xxxii:

     Thus […] he separates […] the details and the whole […] ; and because details alone […] are the sign of a tyro's work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details […] are the sign of the production of a consummate master.

   • 1857, The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville, included in The Portable North American Indian Reader, New York: Penguin Books, 1977, page 525,

     Master of that woodland-cunning enabling the adept to subsist where the tyro would perish...

   • 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 5, in The Whisperer in Darkness:

     The text, though, was marvellously accurate for a tyro’s work; and I concluded that Akeley must have used a machine at some previous period—perhaps in college.

   • 1959 May, “New Reading on Railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 271:

     Switzerland for Railfans, by B. J. Prigmore and W. J. Wyse (1s.) is a stencilled pamphlet produced by the Electric Railway Society with a number of useful tips for the tyro planning his first visit.

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 171:

     Alliance with the equally youthful Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert, tyro mathematician of genius and darling of the Parisian salons, led to the two men commissioning articles for the new venture straight away [...].

Related terms

• tyrociny
• tirocinium

Translations

a beginner, a novice

• Bulgarian: новак (bg) m (novak), начинаещ (bg) m (načinaešt)
• German: Anfänger (de) m, Neuling (de) m
• Hebrew: טִירוֹן (he) m (tirón)
• Portuguese: principiante (pt), calouro (pt)
• Russian: новичо́к (ru) m (novičók), начина́ющий (ru) m (načinájuščij)
• Spanish: principiante (es) m or f, novato (es) m
• Turkish: çömez (tr), çaylak (tr)

Further reading

• “tyro”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Tory, Troy, ryot, tory, troy