Bricked, a short film.

[Darren Dirt]

Ahhh but do your definitions change when relating to another subject?  Take sports for example.

As is The Way The World Generally Works, the definitions I gave above are the "common sense" meanings, unless qualified by a specific context (such as "professional" sports league vs. the "amateur" leagues, etc... obv. there may be various degrees of a sports "pro" who makes his income from the sport but is not at the "top level" so is a "semi-pro" or an "amateur" but has no other day job... But in most activities there is no re-naming re-defining of the terminology, IMHO.)

For example, a few years ago Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker as an "amateur" because he was a full-time accountant and only played online for fun, not as a secondary source of income. Once he had the $millions from winning I believe he remained as the accountant, and used his huge bankroll to enter bigger tournaments with the hope of actually turning a profit, so he was now a "semi-pro" poker player. If he had quit his day job and done the same think he woulda became -- without needing some outside authority recognition -- a "poker pro".


And interesting point re. clergy -- but AFAIK any "head clergy" in a religious organization does indeed rely on whatever income comes in from the membership as their Primary Income, so they are "professional" in that respect -- and I doubt there's such a thing as a "semi-pro" priest, let alone an "amateur" one.

[Thorin]

Professional can mean either a person who pursues a given activity as a means of livelihood (as defined by Mr. Analog earlier), or a person who is highly skilled at an activity (as defined by Melbosa earlier).  I point you to dictionary.com for an exhaustive definition:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/professional

Amateur means the opposite of Professional, whether that indicates the person is not attempting to make money at an activity or that the person isn't highly skilled at the activity.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amateur