proficient

From Latin proficiens, present participle of proficere (“to go forward, advance, make progress, succeed, be profitable or useful”), from pro (“forth, forward”) + facere (“to make, do”); see fact.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈfɪʃ.ənt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈfɪʃ.ənt/, /pɹəˈfɪʃ.ənt/

• Audio (US)

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proficient (comparative more proficient, superlative most proficient)

1. Good at something; skilled; fluent; practiced, especially in relation to a task or skill.

   He was a proficient writer with an interest in human nature.

   • 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5

     By constant playing and experimenting with these he learned to tie rude knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these he and the younger apes amused themselves. What Tarzan did they tried to do also, but he alone originated and became proficient.

• (good at): skilled, fluent, practiced

proficient (plural proficients)

1. An expert.
   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 10,

     Why not subpoena as well the clerical proficients?

• (expert): expert; see also Thesaurus:skilled person

• profit
• profitability
• profitable
• profiteer
• proficiency

• proficient in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• proficient in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

prōficient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of prōficiō