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professional

professional

3.4
Relating to a job that needs special training and skill
  • adjective
  • /prəˈfɛʃənl/
translation icon : profesional
  • Her professional skills in negotiation helped secure the best deal for the company.
  • professional development
  • professional counseling
  • professional school

It is so professional and I'm a huge fan.

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Examples

  • With her reputation for being hard-working and professional, Selena seems headed for a bright future.

    Academic text (2011)
  • It's just overall more professional and more modern in here.

  • Like it's a, it's a fairly professional look from these guys.

  • Following his early retirement, he worked as a professional mentor for a local training company.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Yeah, she's always so nice and professional.

  • This is a professional workplace, Katy.

  • The team delivered a professional presentation that impressed everyone in the room.

  • It's important to maintain a professional demeanor during job interviews to make a good impression.

Synonyms

expert
vsprofessional
3 3.5

Very skilled and knowing a lot about a particular area

relates to work standards and expected competence rather than top-level mastery

Antonyms

Not showing the skill or behavior expected of a trained person

6 2.9

Having no ability or training to do something well

Not trained or paid to do a job in a particular area

Compounds

The time a person spends working in a job or career

A person trained to give care and advice about people's health

Football where players are paid to play for teams

A sport played by paid players as their job

A game of basketball played by paid players in official leagues

A kind of sport put on as a show with paid performers and planned results

A person who dances for money as their job

A group of people with the same job who support members and set standards for their work

A person with special training who works in jobs like a lawyer, doctor or engineer

Playing tennis as a paid job rather than as a hobby

A trained cook who works in a restaurant or at events

An organization of people with the same job who support each other's work

A person who plays or teaches golf for money

The sport of playing golf for money

A person who plays tennis and earns money from it

A sport where people get paid to fight with gloves

1 7.8

An action that ends a person's career or future job chances

A trained person who fights in boxing matches for money

A relationship between a trained helper and a person who gets their help, like a doctor or lawyer

A high level of skill and careful style in professional work

8.2

A person who often pretends to suffer to get attention or personal gain

How Professional

masterful
33 5.3
expert
3 3.5
professional
3.4
competent
114 3.6
amateur
175 3.5
inexperienced
66 3.4

Surface Forms

professional positive

Morphology

professional = profession (transparent) = profession + al

The adjective is formed in the regular way from 'profession' with the suffix '-al', so the meaning is straightforwardly related to a profession.

Etymology

Professional comes from the verb profess meaning 'to say openly' and the noun profession meaning 'a declared job'. So professional as an adjective describes the skill and behaviour people expect from someone trained for a job.