professional
Etymology

From Middle English professhennalle, professhynalle; equivalent to profession + -al.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /pɹəˈfɛʃənəl/
Noun

professional (plural professionals)

  1. A person who belongs to a profession.
  2. A person who earns their living from a specified activity.
  3. (euphemism) A prostitute.
    There was this nice lady who flirted with me at the bar, but it turned out that she was a professional.
  4. A reputation known by name.
  5. An expert.
  6. One of four categories of sociologist propounded by Horowitz: a sociologist who is actively concerned with promoting the profession of sociology.
Translations Translations Translations Adjective

professional

  1. Of, pertaining to, or in accordance with the (usually high) standards of a profession.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:
      His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; […].
  2. That is carried out for money, especially as a livelihood.
  3. (by extension) Expert.
Translations Translations Translations


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