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professional football

professional football

13 1.6
Football where players are paid to play for teams
  • noun
  • /prəˈfɛʃənl ˈfʊtbɔl/
translation icon : fútbol profesional
  • It is a fine day for professional football here in Chicago.
  • professional football player
  • professional football team
  • women's professional football

I would have done anything to have a gay professional football player in the NFL so that I could have looked and been like, I want to be like him.

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Examples

  • Many young athletes dream of pursuing a career in professional football.

  • The regeneration of women's professional football began in 1999 with the Women's Professional Football League (WPFL).

    Academic text (2006)
  • Greatest team... in the history of professional football.

  • The game of professional football has come of age.

  • What would you say if I told you I was a professional football player?

  • Since World War Two, professional football has had the most remarkable growth.

    Academic text (1991)
  • Professional football is a business...

  • Antonio Gates is one of the better tight ends to ever play professional football.

    Blog text (9)
  • That's why some athletes who play professional football, for example, start every game and every training with the big three.

  • I'm here on Franklin Street with Vince Papale, a bartender at Max's Bar and Grill and perhaps future professional football player with the Philadelphia Eagles.

How Professional

premiership
  • UK
1 4.2
professional football
13 1.6
semipro
  • Informal
4.4
filthy casual
  • Offensive
9.9

Surface Forms

Morphology

professional + football

The meaning is directly compositional: 'professional' (paid athlete) + 'football' (the sport) clearly yields 'football played for payment'. This adjective + noun combination follows standard, cross-linguistically common semantics, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the phrase.

Etymology

Professional football comes from the word professional, meaning someone who is 'paid' to do a job, and football, the sport. When players began to get money instead of playing just for fun, people used professional football to mean 'football played for payment'.