tenderfoot

English

Etymology

tender +‎ foot. Refers to the delicate feet of newcomers to ranching or mining areas. First attested 1866.

Noun

tenderfoot (plural tenderfeet or tenderfoots)

1. (chiefly Canada, US) An inexperienced person; a novice.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:beginner, Thesaurus:newcomer

2. (historical) A newcomer or arriviste to the region in the American frontier (Old West and Wild West).
   • 1914, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Houghton Mifflin Company, page 173:

     Watson had risen so hurriedly that he had not been careful about his “tarp” and water had run into his bed. But that wouldn’t disconcert anybody but a tenderfoot.

   • 1991 August 31, Rudy Grillo, “Color Me Gay”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 7, page 10:

     "Lavender Cowboy," a pseudo folk song, is a tale of futility. It tells of a tenderfoot "with only two hairs on his chest," whose heroic attempt to prove his manhood results in his death.

3. (dated) A Boy Scout of the lowest rank.

Translations

novice

• Bulgarian: новобранец m (novobranec)
• Finnish: vasta-alkaja (fi), noviisi (fi), mopo (fi), keltanokka (fi)
• French: pied-tendre (fr) m, blanc-bec (fr) m
• Italian: novizio (it)

newcomer in the old US frontier days

• Finnish: arkajalka (fi)

lowest rank of Boy Scout

• Finnish: kolkkapoika (fi)

See also

• cheechako
• greenhorn
• newbie