DCHP-1 Online

greenhorn

• 1 n. Fur Trade See 1920 quote.

  See also: green hand (def. 1)  

  • 1920  We were "greenhorns", a name applied to men during their first year in the service.
  • 1930  (1851)  During the day a boat came out to us from York Factory, manned with a mixed crew of Indians, Half breeds & French Canadian Voyageurs, all different in appearance, dress and language to anything we "greenhorns" had ever run across before.
  • 1939  Trading parties were going out. . . . The year was 1862. I was a greenhorn.

• 2 † n. in lumbering, fishing, etc., an inexperienced man.

  See also: green hand (def. 2)  

  • 1854  A cheaper class of men, generally the "greenhorns," are employed as road cutters.
  • 1896  There is nothing that so cheers the heart of the lumberman as to play a practical joke on one whom he calls a "greenhorn," or, in other words, any one unused to the strange ways and flavor of the lumber-camps. . . .