noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Ability, skill, competence. countable, uncountable

   "to attain (or to reach) proficiency"

2. 2
   the quality of having great facility and competence wordnet
3. 3
   skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

abilitycommandcompetenceskillabilityableness

Example

More examples

"The letters STEP stand for the Society for Testing English Proficiency."

Etymology

From proficient or its etymon, Latin prōficiēns (present participle of prōficiō), + -ency.

Related phrases

language proficiencyproficiency badge

Related Topic Clusters

IELTS and TOEFL Vocabulary

High-value academic words that appear frequently in English proficiency exams.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.