Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell professional

What it means: Doing paid work as a main job rather than a hobby.

In a sentence: My dad is a professional soccer coach. ▶

The part people get wrong

Watch for double s, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as proffesional or proffesional.

Same family: professionalism, professionalize, professor, profession, professionally. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Professional comes from the Latin word ‘professio,’ meaning a public declaration or vow, especially of a religious or academic kind. Over time, it shifted to mean a person who publicly declares a specialized skill and earns a living from it.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

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