competent vs professional

competent

adj
  • Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications. 

  • Resistant to deformation or flow. 

  • Having jurisdiction or authority over a particular issue or question. 

  • Adequate for the purpose. 

  • Permeable to foreign DNA. 

professional

adj
  • Of, pertaining to, or in accordance with the (usually high) standards of a profession. 

  • Expert. 

  • That is carried out for money, especially as a livelihood. 

noun
  • A person who belongs to a profession 

  • A reputation known by name 

  • A prostitute 

  • An expert 

  • One of four categories of sociologist propounded by Horowitz: a sociologist who is actively concerned with promoting the profession of sociology. 

  • A person who earns their living from a specified activity 

How often have the words competent and professional occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )