''tenderfoot'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''tenderfoot'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

tenderfoot - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

tenderfoot (plural tenderfeet or tenderfoots)

• (chiefly Canada, US) An inexperienced person; a novice.
  • ✤ Synonyms: see Thesaurus: beginner, Thesaurus: newcomer
• (historical) A newcomer or arriviste to the region in the American frontier (Old West and Wild West).
  • ✤ 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.¹
  • ✤ “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.²
• (dated) A Boy Scout of the lowest rank.

Etymology

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

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1914, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Houghton Mifflin Company, page 173: ↩

2. 1991 August 31, Rudy Grillo, “Color Me Gay”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 7, page 10: ↩

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