Etymology 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.
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.
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.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, June 1914, →OCLC:
Etymology 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.
1
An expert.
The colonel now addressed me, […] adding, "I hope we shall send you to your regiment up the country quite a proficient, and calculated to reflect credit on your instructors in the Zubberdust Bullumteers."1880, Francis John Bellew, Memoirs of a Griffin; Or, A Cadet's First Year in India, page 202:
Why not subpoena as well the clerical proficients?1924, Herman Melville, chapter 10, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.: