A newbie is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, the Internet itself, or an operating system.

It can be both a disparaging and friendly term, always referring to a neophyte, or someone who behaves as such.

The word itself is likely a corruption of new boy; a new arrival in a school and who is, therefore, vulnerable to bullying of various kinds, such as hazing or fagging.

It is also used in various clubs and organizations for new members, sometimes also subjected to traditional / creative initation. On Google's Usenet archive, the word first appears in 1988 [1].

The term was used prior to this as slang in the U.S. Military to denote men who had finished technical school (so no longer a recruit and rookie) and were just arriving to their first permanent assignment.

The likely etymology of n00b is the following:

1. newbie (new person)
2. newb (shortened version of newbie)
3. noob (a variant probably for both phonetics and "Leetspeaking")
4. n00b (Leetspeaking the word)
5. nub (shortened version of noob)
6. choob (A new acronym meaning Childish Hateful Obscene Online Brat, that is becoming more and more popular to describe "noobs")
7. ch00b (champion noob, usually a skilled champion, that still doesn't know what they are doing)
8. nooblet (Some one who is a big noob, refers to being very small)
9. nublet (mixture of nub and nooblet, popular in the British gaming communities)
10. uber noob (The worst kind of noob who fails at all aspects of the medium in question)
11. chooblet (Combination of nooblet and choob, popular in Halo : PC)
12. n00bie ch00bie (Used to describe super noobs, popular in Runescape)
13. über Karen (Used to describe the worst kind of noobs).

In some contexts, such as on Usenet and in multiplayer video games, being a newbie is discouraged. Newbies may ask questions that seem extremely simple to experienced users, or disrupt normal order with their lack of skills or etiquette in a certain type of technology. For example, video game players may dislike newbies because they think newbies will hurt or bring down the collective efforts of a team game. Usenet posters may dislike newbies for bringing up off-topic discussion or violating netiquette.

In some groups, the term "newbie" is used by experienced users to refer to any newcomer, whether the newcomer acts ignorantly or not. In this case, the regulars assert their position with a sort of hazing (sometimes called pwning in video games).

In some MMORPGs a newbie is anyone who is lower-leveled than the person making the remark, regardless of actual time spent playing the game. (for example, a level 60 player in World of Warcraft may consider a level 30 player a newbie). Some forums and MMORPGs have banned some of the more common spelling variations ("newb," "noob", "n00b") in an attempt to reduce flame wars. This has, of course, led to more variations.

Referring to regular members as newbies is often considered to be highly insulting. The implication is that they are behaving as if they do not know the rules when in fact they have had more than sufficient opportunity to learn them.

It is often a personal choice within a community whether to discourage or encourage newbies. For example, some GNU/Linux users may discourage non-technical users who try to install GNU/Linux, because supporting these users will be difficult and the newbies may be dissatified in the long run. On the other hand, some GNU/Linux users may prefer to encourage newbies, because it grows their userbase and may help the newbies learn more about computing.

Sometimes, newbies are recognized as the most important members and received with extra attention. Some chat rooms, for example, have established rules to ask "oldies" to first answer the newbies' questions or concerns before resuming their ongoing discussions. Large Internet forums such as 2channel and Gaia Online have special boards for newbies to learn the basics of chatting on that forum.

Other communities do not treat newbies with a significantly elevated status, but do greet most of the friendly newbies with welcomes informing them the methods to get help. In these situations, the term is basically synonymous with newcomer and is meant with or without affection. For example, Wikipedia has a firm policy of welcoming all new contributors whether or not their first edits are helpful to an encyclopedia. This way, users who make mistakes will be encouraged to learn the rules and keep contributing, rather than provoking censure or anger.

The positive interpretation is probably the more recent but has become quite common. The only way to determine the intended connotation is to examine the context.

Individuals may refer to themselves as newbies in a self-deprecating manner or in acknowledgment of their newcomer status, which may (or may not) lessen the amount of harassment they receive. This may have negative or a positive connotations, depending on the standards of the community.

Newb and noob have somewhat different connotations. Newbs are simply newcomers. Noob, on the other hand, generally means someone who is obnoxious, annoying, and breaks the rules; whether they are actual newcomers or not is mostly irrelevant. Therefore, a noob can be someone who has been around for a time but still engages in behavior that they should have learned is unacceptable. Noobs are generally confident in what they are doing, but in reality are annoying others. Newb is not necessarily an insulting word, but noob is.

Noob and its variants (n00b, naab, noobo or übern00b) can also mean a person who claims to know a lot about a subject, but really does not. The term is usually meant to be offensive. It was first used in hacker groups on the BBS chat systems in the 1970s. It is important to note that noob and newb are not necessarily interchangeable.

Recently, the spelling noob has been used more interchangably with newb, however, and is being used in a more joking manner.

In online gaming, the term is also often used as a general insult. Frustrated players on the losing team may refer to the winning team as noobs. In this case, there is no actual connotation of newness meant, the word is simply being used as an insult. By the same token, members of a dominating team may use the term "noobs" (n00bs) to further frustrate their opposition by implying a general lack of skill on the losing team's part. Noob might also be used by veteran players to criticize cheap tactics or overusage of unbalanced weaponry. For example in an online team game where friendly fire is turned off, a noob tactic would be to overuse explosives in cramped areas around fellow teammates. Noobalso specifically applies in games where team-play is important, and the players choose to completely ignore the team structure and goals.

Noob has frequently been written in different forms. Because of the proximity of the 'j' key to the 'n' key, players in online games often typed 'j00b' or 'joob' by accident, and the recent proliferation of 'nub' (used to shorten the word noob) has often turned into 'jub'. Though neither 'joob' or 'jub' have any meaning, their connection with 'noob' makes the two words equivalent. 'B00b' sometimes appears in a similar manner ('b' is right besides 'n' in a standard computer keyboard).

An underground joke is "Noob talk" or "NOB TALK". Noob talk is when an individual uses harsh spelling errors and terrible punctuation to insult noobs. A lot of "real" noob talk is found on games such as Gunbound and Ragnarok Online and RuneScape. An example of this dialect is "ITAM PLEX" (translated into "Items Please") (In Runescape the higher leveled players usually refer to n00bs as "pl0c"'s). Noob talk is fairly simple to grasp: one makes numerous spelling mistakes and overuses common Internet abbreviations. It is easy to discern between "real" noob talk and "joke" noob talk.

Example of real "noob talk": OMG LOLOLOLO U SUK!!!!!!11

Example of joke "noob talk": OMGWTFBBQ U SUK!!!!!11oneone11!one

Newblicon, nooblicon, and newbsicle are also variations.

This is also "fr00b" meaning cheater or fake.

Noob or n00b as insult is sometimes ethically loaded in ways similar to troll. Thus, there are certain actions which will trigger someone's being labelled as a noob or n00b, as a form of peer-to-peer negative sanction. In role-playing games for instance, this would include such actions as begging for free ingame items off other players, attempting to initiate trading with other players outside usual trading areas, following or harassing players, and massively under- or over-charging or -paying for ingame items. It can also include asking for ingame help rather than solving problems oneself or by googling, using dirty tricks to gain an advantage in competitive situations over more skillful or higher-level players, and letting down a team effort through incompetence - with the exact parameters depending who is using the term. Although apparently originating in descriptions of ignorant actions common among new players, its usage extends to high-level players who act in these ways, and does not cover new players (newbs) who do not act in these ways. Its pervasiveness as a general insult or means of chiding players for annoying, foolish or disruptive actions probably originates from the banning, censoring or penalising of more common insults and swearing in many online gaming settings. Someone online may call someone a "n00b", who offline would call them a bastard, wanker, or idiot.

The verb "noob" usually means "to own (pwn in some cases) someone like a noob." Noob is not necessarily a derogatory verb, but can be depending on the context. For instance: if person A beats person B to the point where person B looked like a newbie in comparison, person A noobed person B. Anywhere person A could say they owned or beat person B like person B was a noob or newbie, person A noobed person B.

It is also possible to hear the verb used in the opposite context. If person A is new to the game or does not play well and beats person B on a lucky chance, then person B may say that they "got noobed", especially if he or she is an excellent player. Noob as a derogatory verb is therefore not hard to grasp, as it is merely an extension of its noun and adjective counterparts.

"Noobing" is also seen as a verb by "using your 'uber l33t' skills to 'pwn' unsuspecting noobs." This is common in online games, such as Starcraft or Warcraft or Tibia.

Also, "noob" can stand for "no observers", thus intimidating beginners in online games by calling them observers, and not being able to affect the l33t gamer.

And finally, the verb "noob" is sometimes seen as "Noobing it up" (or more commonly, "Newbin' it up"), which means to be or act like a noob. If person A is getting pwned by person B, one could say person A is newbin' it up.

• Chainik
• Luser
• Wannabe
• Leet
• Pure Pwnage