different between professional vs savvy

English

Etymology

profession +? -al

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p???f???n?l/

Noun

professional (plural professionals)

1. A person who belongs to a profession
2. A person who earns their living from a specified activity
3. A reputation known by name
4. An expert.
   • 1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, 1992 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 97:

     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.

Derived terms

• non-professional, nonprofessional
• pseudo-professional, pseudoprofessional
• semi-professional, semiprofessional
• super professional, super-professional, superprofessional

Translations

Adjective

professional (comparative more professional, superlative most professional)

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; […].
2. That is carried out for money, especially as a livelihood.
3. (by extension) Expert.

Derived terms

• non-professional, nonprofessional
• professionalism
• pseudo-professional, pseudoprofessional
• semi-professional, semiprofessional
• unprofessional

Translations

Catalan

Etymology

professió +? -al

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /p?o.f?.si.o?nal/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /p?u.f?.si.u?nal/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /p?o.fe.si.o?nal/
• Rhymes: -al

Adjective

professional (masculine and feminine plural professionals)

1. professional

Derived terms

• professionalisme
• professionalment

Noun

professional m or f (plural professionals)

1. professional

Further reading

• “professional” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “professional” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “professional” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “professional” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

From English professional.

Pronunciation

Noun

professional m (plural professionals)

1. a professional practicioner of a trade, métier...
2. an expert in a (professional) field

Related terms

• professionalism n

English

Etymology

Alteration of save, sabi (“know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese or Spanish sabe (“[she/he] knows”), from saber (“to know”), from Latin sapi? (“to be wise”).

1785, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”; West Indies pidgin borrowing of French savez(-vous) (“do you know”), Portuguese (você) sabe (“you know”) or Spanish (usted) sabe (“you know”), all from Vulgar Latin *sapere, from Latin sapere (“be wise, be knowing”) (see sapient). The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?sæ.vi/
• Rhymes: -ævi

Adjective

savvy (comparative savvier, superlative savviest)

1. (informal) Shrewd, well-informed and perceptive.
   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[1]

     That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

Synonyms

• canny

Derived terms

• tech-savvy

Related terms

Translations

Verb

savvy (third-person singular simple present savvies, present participle savvying, simple past and past participle savvied)

1. (informal) To understand.

Translations

Noun

savvy (uncountable)

1. (informal) Shrewdness.

References

• “savvy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Chinese Pidgin English

Alternative forms

• sarby

Etymology

From Macau Pidgin Portuguese ?? (saat3 baai3), ?? (saat3 bi6), ?? (saan2 baai3), from Portuguese sabe.

Verb

savvy

1. know
2. understand

References

• Gow, W. S. P. (1924) Gow’s Guide to Shanghai, 1924: A Complete, Concise and Accurate Handbook of the City and District, Especially Compiled for the Use of Tourists and Commercial Visitors to the Far East, Shanghai, page 108: “Savvy: (Portuguese) know; understand; No savvy ? Do you not understand ?”