Unprofessional

How to spell unprofessional

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce unprofessional

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unprofessional mean?

1. adjectiveNot meeting the standards of behaviour, competence, or conduct expected in a job or skilled occupation.

Unprofessional in a sentence

• Arriving an hour late to every meeting looks deeply unprofessional.

• The manager was disciplined for unprofessional comments about a client.

Where does unprofessional come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'professional', which traces back to the Latin verb profiteri, meaning 'to declare publicly' or 'to claim openly'. Its past participle professus gave rise to professio, a public declaration, and in particular the vows declared on entering a religious order or a recognised calling. English took 'profession' through Old French in the 1300s, where it described both a solemn declaration and the occupation a person openly professed. By the 1700s 'professional' described conduct fitting a skilled, paid calling, and the negative prefix 'un-' (meaning simply 'not') produced 'unprofessional' for behaviour falling short of those standards. The buried 'profess' is the memory aid for the spelling: the double 's' belongs to that root, and the whole word is just 'un' plus 'professional' with no letters added or lost.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• profess (from Latin profiteri: to declare publicly)
• -ion (noun)
• -al (adjective)