a person not yet skilled or experienced in an art or profession.

In the ancient Roman militia, novicii, or noviti, were the young raw soldiers, distinguished by this appellation from the veterans.

In the ancient orders of knighthood, there were novices, or clerks in arms, who went through a kind of apprenticeship ere they were admitted knights.—See Knight.

Novice is more particularly used in monasteries for a religious yet in his, or her, year of probation, and who has not made the vows.

In some convents, the sub-prior has the direction of the novices. In nunneries, the novices wear a white veil; the rest a black one.