"rookie" from "recruit"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Mark Mandel wrote:
> ....
> Is there any evidence for how the military sense would have derived from the
> bird sense?
--

I don't know of real evidence, but there are possibilities:

(1)

"Rookery" was applied to [disorderly] barracks (military and civilian)
and the like. Farmer & Henley (1903) (under "rook"): <<Hence ROOKERY =
(1) a gambling hell; and (2) any place of ill repute: _e.g._, (a) a
brothel, (b) subalterns' barrack quarters, and (c) a neighbourhood
occupied by a criminal or squalid population, a SLUM (_q.v._).>>

(2)

Barrère & Leland slang dictionary (1890) says: <<*Rookey* (army), a
recruit; from the black coat some of them wear.>>

-- Doug Wilson

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