A novice is someone who is just starting to learn a skill or activity. When you pick up a violin for the first time, you're a novice violinist. When your friend joins the soccer team without ever having played before, she's a novice player.

A chess club might have a novice tournament for players who haven't learned advanced strategies yet. A novice programmer is writing their first simple programs, while an expert can build complex software.

Every expert was once a novice. The key is that a novice is actively learning, not just uninformed. When you approach something as a novice, you're admitting what you don't know yet, which is the first step toward getting better. The opposite of a novice might be an expert, a master, or a veteran, someone with years of experience and deep knowledge.