newbie

A newbie ( pronounced NOO-bee ) is a novice or neophyte: anyone who is new to any particular type of endeavor, such as a sport or a technology. The term is commonly applied to new users of personal computers and to new users of the Internet. According to Eric Raymond's The New Hacker's Dictionary , Newbie is a variant of the English public school term, new boy , someone in the first year or period of school. The term predates the Web and has been used for some time in Usenet newsgroups. Glenn Connery reports that he used the term in 1990 as a participant in Internet chatting group.

Newb , noob , and n00b , (the central characters in the latter term are zeroes, visually suggestive of a pair of wide eyes) are commonly used short forms. Noob and n00b are sometimes used to indicate a newbie who has unwarranted confidence in their knowledge and/or abilities .