profess

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Etymology

From Latin.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛs

Verb

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

1. To make open declaration of, as of one's knowledge, belief, action, etc.; to avow or acknowledge; to confess publicly; to own or admit freely.
2. To set up a claim to; to make presence to; hence, to put on or present an appearance of.
3. To present to knowledge of, to proclaim one's self versed in; to make one's self a teacher or practitioner of, to set up as an authority respecting; to declare (one's self to be such); as, he professes surgery; to profess one's self a physician.
4. To take a profession upon one's self by a public declaration; to confess.
5. (obsolete) To declare friendship.

External links

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