profess

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman professer, and its source, the participle stem of Latin profitērī, from pro- + fatērī (“to confess, acknowledge”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /pɹəˈfɛs/
• Rhymes: -ɛs

Verb

profess (third-person singular simple present professes, present participle professing, simple past and past participle professed)

1. (transitive) To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. (Chiefly in passive.) [from 14th c.]
   • 2000, Butler's Lives of the Saints, p. 118:

     This swayed the balance decisively in Mary's favour, and she was professed on 8 September 1578.

2. (reflexive) To declare oneself (to be something). [from 16th c.]
   • 2011, Alex Needham, The Guardian, 9 Dec 2011:

     Kiefer professes himself amused by the fuss that ensued when he announced that he was buying the Mülheim-Kärlich reactor [...].

3. (transitive) To declare; to assert, affirm. [from 16th c.]
   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, First Folio 1623:

     He professes to haue receiued no sinister measure from his Iudge, but most willingly humbles himselfe to the determination of Iustice [...].

   • 1974, ‘The Kansas Kickbacks’, Time, 11 Feb 1974:

     The Governor immediately professed that he knew nothing about the incident.

4. (transitive) To make a claim (to be something), to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity. [from 16th c.]
   • 2010, Hélène Mulholland, The Guardian, 28 Sep 2010:

     Ed Miliband professed ignorance of the comment when he was approached by the BBC later.

5. (transitive) To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.). [from 16th c.]
   • 1983, Alexander Mcleish, The Frontier Peoples of India, Mittal Publications 1984, p. 122:

     The remainder of the population, about two-thirds, belongs to the Mongolian race and professes Buddhism.

6. (transitive) To work as a professor of; to teach. [from 16th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.12:

     he was a Spaniard, who about two hundred yeeres since professed Physicke in Tholouse [...].

7. (transitive, now rare) To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter). [from 16th c.]

External links

• profess in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• profess in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911