unprofessional

adjectiveB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,898 of 15,258leans spoken

Unprofessional means falling below the standards of a trade or a job. Unprofessional conduct, deeply unprofessional, unprofessional behaviour.

It says nothing about pay: an unpaid volunteer can behave unprofessionally and a highly paid person often does. In regulated trades it is a disciplinary charge with a defined meaning, and it can end a career.

Definitions of unprofessional

1adjectiveunprofessionalFalling below the standards of a trade or a job.B2+
“Turning up late and swearing at clients is completely unprofessional.”

unprofessional is a quality.

Where it comes from

Middle English
professhennalle
English
professional
English, today
unprofessional

From un- + professional. professional comes from Middle English professhennalle, professhynalle; equivalent to profession + al.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

unprofessional in the wild

Later it was prepared but in an unprofessional way, damaging the skeleton, especially the skull where the entire right jugal bone was removed.
Rapaxavis
The journal is known for publishing "a large number of unprofessional articles" and was under investigation by the publisher as of December 2020.
Early Human Development
In 2011 he was removed from umpiring by the ICC following unprofessional conduct, which reportedly included supplying information about the pitch and conditions before a game.
Devendra Sharma (umpire)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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