tenderfoot

n., pl., -foots, or -feet (-fēt').

1. A newcomer not yet hardened to rough outdoor life; a greenhorn.
2. An inexperienced person; a novice.
3. often Tenderfoot A Boy Scout of the lowest rank.

(TEN-duhr-foot)

noun
A newcomer or a beginner at something, one not used to hardships.

Etymology
Originally the term was applied to newcomers to ranching and mining districts in the western US. A tenderfoot is quite different from a tenderloin tenderloin.

Usage
"Elisabeth Moss's years of comfortable anonymity may be over because of the engrossing role as the tenderfoot who begins to climb the corporate ladder in Mad Men." — Luaine Lee; Moss finds a perfect fit on 'Mad Men'; The Olympian (Olympia, Washington); Jul 28, 2008.

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noun

One who is just starting to learn or do something: abecedarian, beginner, fledgling, freshman, greenhorn, initiate, neophyte, novice, novitiate, tyro. Slang rookie. See start/end.

Origin: 1849

The California gold rush enriched the American vocabulary with forty-niner and with mining terms like pay dirt, placer, sluice, and tailings. It also brought in the kind of person known as a tenderfoot. This was a beginner or newcomer, someone unaccustomed to mining and the West. Outfitted for mining, the newcomer was likely to be costumed in his first pair of cowboy boots, which would soon make the feet tender. Another word for the phenomenon was rawheel, as we learn from a young miner, Tommy Plunkett, who was recorded in a friend's diary in 1849 as saying, "We saw a man in Sacramento when we were on our way here, who was a tenderfoot, or rawheel, or whatever you call 'em, who struck a pocket of gold."

Tommy's second term, rawheel, is not elsewhere recorded, but tenderfoot became an enduring legacy of the gold rush. Pointing to the sore spot in a newcomer's adaptation to the rugged life, it has proved its usefulness. For example, Elizabeth Custer, the general's widow, used it in an 1890 memoir: "The frontiersman had then, as now, a great 'despise,' as they put it, for the tenderfoot."

The twentieth century gave new life to the word when it gave birth to the Boy Scouts. The English founder (in 1910) of the Boy Scouts, Sir Robert Baden-Powell, could think of no better word than the American tenderfoot for the first and lowest of the ranks in his outdoor program for boys. The American Boy Scouts, founded a year later, used the same designation. As a result, throughout much of this century, many young American boys of all races, religions, and social levels have experienced first hand the meaning of tenderfoot.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - grønskolling, begynder, nyankommen

Nederlands (Dutch)
beginneling

Français (French)
n. - novice, nouveau

Deutsch (German)
n. - Anfänger, Neuling

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - νεαρός πρόσκοπος ή λυκόπουλο, αρχάριος, πρωτάρης (κν. στραβάδι)

Italiano (Italian)
principiante

Português (Portuguese)
n. - novato (m), pessoa (f) não acostumada à vida no mato

Русский (Russian)
новичок, "зеленый"

Español (Spanish)
n. - novato, recién llegado

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - nykomling, novis, gröngöling, nybörjare (scout)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
新手, 无经验者, 生手

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 新手, 無經驗者, 生手

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 신참자, 풋내기

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 新参者, 新米, 初心者

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) شخص لم يألف الحياة الحافله بالمشاق, الوافد او القادم الجديد ( على منطقه حديثه العهد بالعمران)‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מתחיל, טירון, חניך חדש בצופים, משתקע חדש (בארה"ב)‬

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