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Proficiency vs Mastery - What's the difference?

proficiency | mastery |

As nouns the difference between proficiency and mastery

is that proficiency is ability, skill, competence while mastery is the position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority.

proficiency

English

Noun

(proficiencies)
  • Ability, skill, competence.
  • a test of proficiency in English
    to attain (or to reach) proficiency
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=April 26 , author=Tasha Robinson , title=Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits : , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=But Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick. The ambition is all in the craft rather than in the storytelling, but it’s hard to say no to the proficiency of that craft, or the mild good cheer behind it. }}

    Synonyms

    * ability * command * competence * skill * See also

    mastery

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • The position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority.
  • * Sir (Walter Raleigh) (ca.1554-1618)
  • If divided by mountains, they will fight for the mastery of the passages of the tops.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1892, author=(James Yoxall)
  • , chapter=5, title= The Lonely Pyramid , passage=The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them.}}
  • Superiority in war or competition; victory; triumph; preeminence.
  • * (w), xxxii. 18
  • The voice of them that shout for mastery .
  • * , ix. 25.
  • Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
  • * (Ben Jonson) (1572-1637)
  • O, but to have gulled him / Had been a mastery .
  • (label) Contest for superiority.
  • (Holland)
  • (label) A masterly operation; a feat.
  • * (Geoffrey Chaucer) (c.1343-1400)
  • I will do a maistrie ere I go.
  • (label) The philosopher's stone.
  • The act or process of mastering; the state of having mastered; expertise.
  • * (John Tillotson) (1630-1694)
  • He could attain to a mastery in all languages.
  • * (John Locke) (1632-1705)
  • The learning and mastery of a tongue, being unpleasant in itself, should not be cumbered with other difficulties.