Pl. -oes, -os. Forms: α. 7 tyron, tyrone, pl. 7–9 tyrones. β. 7–9 tyro, 8–9 tiro, pl. 7–8 tyro’s, 7– tyros, tyroes, 8– tiroes. [a. L. tīro, pl. tīrānēs (in med.L. often spelt tyro, tyrones: so in Du Cange), a young soldier, a recruit, a beginner; It. tirone, Sp. tiron. Commonly spelt tyro, after med.L., down to the date of Cowper’s Tirocinium, 1784, and still so spelt by the majority of writers; in the 17th c. tyrone was even written for It. tirone, and tyrones as plural after L. is found down to 1824. But a plural of English form tyroes (cf. heroes, negroes) is found in 1672, and tyros in 1690; Cowper has tiroes.]
A beginner or learner in anything; one who is learning or who has mastered the rudiments only of any branch of knowledge; a novice.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 63. Of those punies, those tyrones that are brought up under those threescore, there are no less then a thousand and five hundred.
1647. R. Stapylton, Juvenal, 109. Exercising and training like the tyrones or young souldiers in Camp Mart.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Tyrone..., a fresh water-souldier; a young beginner in any art or science, a novice.
1670. E. Maynwaring, Physician’s Repos., 92. They do but qualify you as a Tyro.
1672. Manley, Cowell’s Interpr., Pref. The Students of the Law be no Tyroes in other Learning; or, at least, ought not to be.
1697. Evelyn, Numism., vii. 252. For the Ease and Benefit of Tyros.
1699. Garth, Dispens., III. 31. There stands a Structure on a rising Hill, Where Tyro’s take their Freedom out to kill.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., III. 24/1. The Tyroes in the art of Painting.
1784. Cowper, Tiroc., 220. The management of tiroes of eighteen Is difficult.
1797. Monthly Mag., III. 240/1. Dr. Travis … was … on entering into this province of theological polemics, a Tiro, compared with his antagonists.
1803. Times, 7 Feb., 2/4. The Swedith Artist, who has invented glasses to look into the sea, is a mere Tyro to some of our political contemporaries, who every day prove their wonderful faculty of looking a foot deep into a mill-stone.
1810. Edin. Rev., XV. 399. The tyro will not complain that it [the word] is obscure.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, let. xiii. A subject upon whilk all the tyrones have been trying their whittles.
1828. Whately, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), I. 282/1. It will … be advisable for a tiro in composition to look over what he has written.
1851. Ruskin, Mod. Paint. (ed. 2), I. Pref. 36. The merest tyro in art knows that [etc.].
1869. Farrar, Fam. Speech, ii. (1873), 49. The youngest tiro is hardly surprised to learn that lieu and coucher both spring from one root.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 13. It is difficult to acquit Plato … of being a tyro in dialectics, when he overlooks such a distinction.
1880. Swinburne, Stud. Shaks., 14. Easily recognisable by the veriest tiro in the school of Shakespeare.
attrib. a. 1660. Contemp. Hist. Irel. (Ir. Archæol. Soc.), I. 162. Those tyron souldiers and novices in the arte militarie.
1860. Piesse, Lab. Chem. Wonders, 142. A tyro-chemist in search of the philosopher’s stone.
1903. H. G. Hutchinson, in Watson, Eng. Sport, 272. Conveying some information to the tiro golfer.
1905. Daily Chron., 14 July, 5/7. Rifle Clubs’ Tyro Competition, open to teams of five tyro members.
