Professional Meaning
/pɹəˈfɛʃ.ə.nəl/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA person who belongs to a profession.
nounA person who earns their living from a specified activity.
Sentence Examples
Do you have professional experience?
Your singing puts professional singers to shame.
You need a professional to sort out your finances.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
For the important project, they needed a ____ engineer to lead the team.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The lawyer handled the case in a thoroughly ____ manner, keeping the client informed at every stage.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English professhennalle, professhynalle; equivalent to profession + -al.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"My son, a Canada-based IT professional who often travels to Ukraine, told me about the exhilarating atmosphere on those Ukraine-bound trains, bringing home hundreds of the unwilling refugees, mostly women and children (including the babies, born in exile on the way to meet their Ukrainian fighter fathers for the first time). The difference between Ukrainian refugees and other reluctant exiles is that Ukrainians are desperate to return."
— 2024 September 4, Vitali Vitaliev, “A salute to Ukraine's 'Second Army'”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 49:
"I have learned that there is a person attached to a golf club called a professional. Find out who fills that post at the Green Meadow Club; […] invite the professional, urgently, to dine with us this evening."
— 1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 97:
"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;[…]."
— 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
"The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were."
— 2019 March 18, Steven Pifer, Five years after Crimea’s illegal annexation, the issue is no closer to resolution, The Center for International Security and Cooperation:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
For the important project, they needed a ____ engineer to lead the team.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The lawyer handled the case in a thoroughly ____ manner, keeping the client informed at every stage.