Other forms: trainees
A trainee is a person still learning the job while doing it. A trainee solicitor, trainee scheme, taken on as a trainee.
The point is that the learning happens at work rather than before it, which is why trainees are paid and students are not. The -ee ending marks the receiver of an action — a trainee is one who is trained, as an employee is one employed. Note trainer, which is the other end of the same pair.
1nountraineeA person still learning the job while doing it.
“The trainee chef spent her first month chopping vegetables and washing pans.”
trainee is a learner.
Old French
train
Middle English
trayne — train
English
train
English, today
trainee
Built from
From train + -ee. train comes from Middle English trayne (“train”), from Old French train, from Old French trainer. From Middle English trayne (“train”), from Old French train (“a delay, a drawing out”), from traïner (“to pull out, to draw”), from Vulgar Latin traginō, from tragō, from Latin trahō (“to pull, to draw”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dʰregʰ- (“to pull, draw, drag”). The verb was derived from the noun in Middle English. For the meaning to teach compare typologically ната́скивать (akin to тащи́ть).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA