novitiate.

1. The period of training and testing before full membership in a religious order.

2. The novices belonging to a religious community, considered as a group.

3. A place or section of a religious house set apart for novices.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• begin a novitiate
• complete the novitiate

On the page

Her novitiate began before she understood how much of her old life she would leave behind.

The letter arrived near the end of his novitiate.

Usage notes

Primary category: gothic. Forms: Singular novitiate; plural novitiates. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.