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Uninitiated vs Layman - What's the difference?

uninitiated | layman |

As an adjective uninitiated

is not having been initiated.

As a noun layman is

layperson, someone who is not an ordained cleric or member of the clergy.

uninitiated

English

Adjective

(-)
  • Not having been initiated.
  • Of a person, not having the special knowledge of a particular group.
  • His jargon-filled talk was gibberish to the uninitiated but clear and concise to practitioners.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1863 , year_published= , publisher=Little, Brown, and Co , editor=Sir William Smith , author= , title=A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising its Antiquities, Biography, Geography and Natural History , volume_plain=Volume III. Red Sea-Zuzims , section=Versions, Ancient (Targum) citation , pages=1653-1654 , passage=Even in the midst of the full swing of fancy, swayed to and fro by the many currants of thought that arise out of a single word, snatches of the verse from which the flight was taken will suddenly appear on the surface like a refrain or a keynote, showing that in reality there is a connexion, though hidden to the uninitiated .}}
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1914 , year_published=2001 , publisher=Adegi Graphics , author=William Halse Rivers Rivers , title=The History of Melanesian Society , volume=2, Part 1 , section=Chapter XXXIII. Religion and Magic citation , isbn=9781402197727 , page=411 , passage=To the uninitiated', the belief not merely in the influence of the dead, but in their actual presence during secret rites is, or has until lately been, very real, and in so far as the ' uninitiated are brought into relation with the societies will possess a religious character.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine
  • , year=1961 , title=Tape recorders: A quick guide for the uninitiated , date=January 1962 , volume=16 , issue=1 , page=13 , magazine=Changing Times: The Kiplinger Magazine , editor=Herbet L. Brown Jr , publisher=Kiplinger Washington Editors , issn=1528-9729 citation , passage=A quick guide for the uninitiated }}
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=2008 , publisher=Fordham University Press , author=David E. Johnson , title=Anthropology's Wake: Attending to the End of Culture , section=Ex-Cited Dialogue citation , isbn= 9780823228782 , page=107 , passage=Although the priests are the initiated, they remain ignorant and incapable of instructing the uninitiated in the proper method of painting the temples.}}

    layman

    English

    (wikipedia layman)

    Noun

    (laymen)
  • layperson, someone who is not an ordained cleric or member of the clergy
  • by analogy, someone who is not a professional in a given field
  • Carmen is not a professional anthropologist, but strictly a layman .
    Let me explain it to you in layman's terms.
  • a common person
  • a person who is untrained or lacks knowledge of a subject
  • * 2005 , .
  • should he be held to be just a layman , or does he have some art?
  • a generally ignorant person
  • lay-sister or lay-brother, person received into a convent of monks, following the vows, but not being member of the order
  • Antonyms

    * expert * specialist * professional

    Derived terms

    * in layman's terms