raw recruits
Untrained new soldiers
Raw recruits are people newly enlisted or hired who lack training and experience.
The phrase emphasizes their unfinished state—raw suggesting unprocessed or unrefined, not yet shaped by discipline or practice: The sergeant faced a barracks full of raw recruits.
The term applies beyond military contexts to any novices in an organization.
- rookiesInexperienced beginners in profession
- novicesInexperienced newcomers
- greenhornsInexperienced beginners
- newbiesInexperienced newcomers
- fresh meatNaive new targets
new blood · trainees · cadets · privates · rank and file · boot camp · military training · drill · standing at attention · parade ground · uniforms · barracks · enlistment · fresh-faced · inexperienced · untested · green · basic training
- newcomersnewcomers, newcomer, new arrivals, new arrival, newbie
- infantryfoot soldiers, foot soldier, rifleman, riflemen, infantryman
- conscriptionconscription, conscript, conscripts, draftee, draftees
- expendable soldierscannon fodder, expendables, disposables, fresh meat, warm bodies
raw recruitscombat veterans
Soldiers with battlefield experience
old hands · career soldiers · lifers · decorated soldiers · elite forces
raw recruitsexperts
Highly skilled practitioners
masters · professionals · adepts · virtuosos
rawer, rawest, rawness, recruit, recruits, recruiting, recruited, recruiter, recruiters