practitioner
Pluralpractitioners
- 1Someone who works in a profession or skilled art, especially medicine or law.
Experienced practitioners in medicine often mentor those just starting out.
He built his reputation as a skilled practitioner of constitutional law.
Similarprofessional, specialist, expert, exponent
Note
Behind the professional's title sits a spelling with one suffix too many. The older form, practicioner, stands for practicianer: practician with an -er added it did not need, the same doubling heard in musicianer. Practician itself is a synonym. The noun usually takes of before the field or art: a practitioner of law, or, as The Economist wrote of Isaac Newton in 2014, "a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason."
- 2A person who does something regularly or as a customary habit.
She has been a lifelong practitioner of meditation since her teens.
Practitioners of traditional crafts pass their skills to the next generation.
Similardevotee, adherent, exponent, follower, enthusiast
Note
Unlike the professional sense, nothing here implies training, pay or a license. It covers anyone who keeps up a practice, such as a discipline like meditation or Falun Gong, a craft, or a habit. The word usually comes paired with what is practiced. That pairing can be a modifier in front (Falun Gong practitioners) or a phrase with of after it (a practitioner of meditation).
- 3A sly or crafty person who uses cunning and deception.
The wily practitioner talked his way out of every debt he owed.
Townsfolk warned newcomers about the cunning practitioner who haunted the docks.
Similartrickster, schemer, swindler, operator, rogue
Note
A dated sense, and one a modern reader can easily miss, because the same word now sounds respectable. Around 1572 John Whitgift calls the men of St. John's "cunning practitioners" for shaking off their Masters and Heads, and the adjective does much of the work. Used today, the word needs that kind of signal, such as cunning, wily or sly. Without it, readers will take it as the professional sense.
Practice
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Origin
This word was formerly "practicioner," from an earlier "*practicianer," formed from "practician" plus the suffix "-er": the ending being unnecessarily added, as also happens in "musicianer."