A white-collar worker, especially one with a specialized, high-earning job such as a doctor or engineer.
[…]extra income earned this way is normally used for buying consumer goods, such as a cottage, car, boat, and so on, irrespective of whether the recipient is a professional or a tradesman.1987 June 18, Alena Heitlinger, Reproduction, Medicine and the Socialist State, Springer, →ISBN, page 104:
They devised their own categories in which the working class formed a smaller proportion of the electorate: • I Salariat (managers, administrators, professionals, semi-professionals)2014 June 3, Mark Garnett, Philip Lynch, Exploring British Politics, Routledge, →ISBN, page 517:
1 more example
Russian immigrants had the highest percentage of professionals or managers (49 percent)2017 February 23, Nina Michalikova, New Eastern European Immigrants in the United States, Springer, →ISBN, page 110:
3
A person who earns their living from a specified activity.
My son, a Canada-based IT professional who often travels to Ukraine, told me about the exhilarating atmosphere on those Ukraine-bound trains, bringing home hundreds of the unwilling refugees, mostly women and children (including the babies, born in exile on the way to meet their Ukrainian fighter fathers for the first time). The difference between Ukrainian refugees and other reluctant exiles is that Ukrainians are desperate to return.2024 September 4, Vitali Vitaliev, “A salute to Ukraine's 'Second Army'”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 49:
There was this nice lady who flirted with me at the bar, but it turned out that she was a professional.
5
A reputation known by name.
6
An expert.
I have learned that there is a person attached to a golf club called a professional. Find out who fills that post at the Green Meadow Club; […] invite the professional, urgently, to dine with us this evening.1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 97:
7
One of four categories of sociologist propounded by Horowitz: a sociologist who is actively concerned with promoting the profession of sociology.
professional
adj
Etymology From Middle English professhennalle, professhynalle; equivalent to profession + -al.
1
Of, pertaining to, or in accordance with the (usually high) standards of a profession.
His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill;[…].1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were.2019 March 18, Steven Pifer, Five years after Crimea’s illegal annexation, the issue is no closer to resolution, The Center for International Security and Cooperation:
2
That is carried out for money, especially as a livelihood.