Professionalism

How to spell professionalism

15 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce professionalism

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does professionalism mean?

1. nounThe competence, conduct, and standards expected of someone in a skilled occupation.

Professionalism in a sentence

• The surgeon handled the emergency with calm professionalism.

• Clients praised the firm for its quiet professionalism and attention to detail.

Where does professionalism come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word ultimately traces back to the Latin verb profiteri, meaning 'to declare publicly' or 'to claim openly', formed from pro 'forth, before' and fateri 'to confess or admit'. From this came the idea of a person who publicly declared their vocation, which gave English 'profess' and then 'profession', a calling that one openly avowed, especially the learned callings of medicine, law, and the church. The adjective 'professional' grew up around it to describe work done by someone trained and paid for that calling, as opposed to an amateur. The abstract noun 'professionalism' is a comparatively modern formation, appearing in the nineteenth century by adding the suffix -ism, which marks a quality, conduct, or set of standards. The spelling trap lives in the middle: that single 's' followed by the 'sh' sound (-ssion-) and the long string of unstressed vowels make it easy to misjudge the doubling and the endings.

How the word is built

• profess- (from Latin profiteri: to declare publicly)
• -ion (noun of action)
• -al (adjective)
• -ism (quality or practice)