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The title says it all! What is newbie as an adverb?

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4  
newbie is a noun, which means newcomer, which is also a noun. Unless you give us more context, there's not much we can do to help. – F'x Feb 25 '11 at 22:48
There probably isn't a real (there might be fake) adverb for newbie. – Victor Feb 25 '11 at 22:51
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I've seen it used as an adjective, but never as an adverb. If you want to use it as an adverb, I'd just use "newbie" or even "newbie-like."...My only other idea is "newbily," which sounds too much like "nubily" for comfort. – kitukwfyer Feb 25 '11 at 23:18
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Actually, the title does not say it all, as I find it incomprehensible. Do you want to find an adverb whose meaning has something to do with "newbie"? If so, what would that meaning be? Or have you seen "newbie" used as an adverb, and want to know what it means? (If the latter, I'm as puzzled as you are.) – Marthaª Feb 25 '11 at 23:40

6 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Noobishly/n00bishly is the most widely used adverbial form, I think.

If you talk that n00bishly about it, do you even know what it is?

can someone noobishly splain to me the O(1), O(N), O(N^2) and O(log N)?

After googling for various possible adverbifications and comparing hit counts, this seems by far the most common:

newbishly    2,390  
noobishly   14,300  
n00bishly   13,800  
newbily      4,670  (mostly not genuine adverbial usages)
noobily      2,600  (ditto)
n00bily        100  (ditto)

Google hit counts are, of course, not a terribly precise measurement; but in this case the results seem reasonably convincing.

The other relevant question is whether newbie, noob, n00b themselves get used as adverbs. This is of course much harder to search for; I’ve not been able to find any examples, and I can’t imagine any that would sound natural, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

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I am so pleased that this word exists. – jhocking Apr 10 '11 at 2:08
up vote 4 down vote

If I wanted to use newbie in an adverb like manner I would go with:

he was running like a newbie

rather than creating some clumsy construction like newbily or newbishly, although I have heard the latter used.

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2  
...I agree with this, but now I desperately want a chance to say "he died noobly" instead of "he died like a noob."...I can think of so many terrible, potential puns... – kitukwfyer Feb 26 '11 at 20:47
up vote 3 down vote

From Urban Dictionary

used as an adjective:

"I have a newbish question..."

Or as an adverb:

"That looks quite newbish..."

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There are rare times when the Urban Dictionary is a valid cite. This is a case in point. – The Raven Feb 26 '11 at 10:55
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Is your second example really using it as an adverb? It seems parallel to constructions like “That looks quite painful,” “That looks really small,”, etc, where look typically takes an adjective. – PLL Feb 26 '11 at 11:54
up vote 1 down vote

"Naively" comes to mind, from a functional standpoint.

The adjectival is fairly straightforward: newbish, noobish, etc. But noob, nooby, or newbie is a noun. We don't normally add 'ly' to nouns to form adverbs. Rather, first we have to create an adjectival, then proceed to to the adverb. Hence, "newbishly" or some variant.

However you elect to go, it will be a nonce coinage.

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1  
Indeed, but newbie, for better or worse, is used as an adjective as often as not....possibly more so...If I were gaming, I would not expect to hear "newbish," just "newb(ie)." Just two more cents. :) – kitukwfyer Feb 26 '11 at 1:33
And newbily, depending on accent, might sound too much like nubilely. – Jon Purdy Feb 26 '11 at 9:09
@kitukwfyer: I’d agree that I’ve heard newbie used as an adjective more often than newbish; but n00bish is also fairly common. – PLL Feb 26 '11 at 11:57
up vote 0 down vote

I'm a newbie english.stackexchange.com question-answerer. It has the connotation of being at the very beginning of learning something, and is implicitly a request for forgiveness if the person describing him-or-herself as a newbie says something completely incorrect about the subject s/he is new to.

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up vote 0 down vote

Newbish. If you want to use proper English words, "unskilled" may work.

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