noviciate vs period of time

noviciate and period of time both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
noviciate	Yes	No	No	No
period of time	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, period of time is a hypernym of noviciate; that is, period of time is a word with a broader meaning than noviciate:

noviciate: the period during which you are a novice (especially in a religious order)
period of time: an amount of time

Other hypernyms of noviciate include period, time period.

noviciate (noun)	period of time (noun)
the period during which you are a novice (especially in a religious order)	an amount of time