Proficient

How to spell proficient

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce proficient

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proficient mean?

1. adjectiveCompetent and well practised at a skill or task, having reached a high level through training or experience.

Proficient in a sentence

• After a year of lessons she became proficient in conversational Spanish.

• The role requires someone proficient in spreadsheets and database queries.

Where does proficient come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Proficient comes from the Latin verb proficere, which meant 'to make progress' or 'to advance', built from pro- 'forward' and facere 'to make or do', so the literal idea was of someone who keeps making forward progress. The present participle of that verb was proficiens, the source of the English form, and it carried the sense of advancing in skill or learning. English adopted the word in the 1500s, and it settled into its modern meaning of being well advanced in a craft or subject, that is, genuinely skilled rather than merely competent. The same facere root sits behind a whole family of familiar words such as 'efficient', 'sufficient', and 'deficient', all of which share that -fic spelling. Remembering the -fic- in 'efficient' helps fix the unstressed middle of proficient, where the schwa sound tempts writers astray.

How the word is built

• pro- (forward)
• fic- (from Latin facere: to make or do)
• -ient (adjective-forming suffix)