Definitions for profess
prəˈfɛspro·fess

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. professverb

   practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about

   "She professes organic chemistry"

2. professverb

   confess one's faith in, or allegiance to

   "The terrorists professed allegiance to their country"; "he professes to be a Communist"

3. concede, profess, confessverb

   admit (to a wrongdoing)

   "She confessed that she had taken the money"

4. professverb

   state freely

   "The teacher professed that he was not generous when it came to giving good grades"

5. professverb

   receive into a religious order or congregation

6. professverb

   take vows, as in religious order

   "she professed herself as a nun"

7. profess, pretendverb

   state insincerely

   "He professed innocence but later admitted his guilt"; "She pretended not to have known the suicide bomber"; "She pretends to be an expert on wine"

WiktionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. professverb

   To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. (Chiefly in passive.)

2. professverb

   To declare oneself (to be something).

3. professverb

   To declare; to assert, affirm.

4. professverb

   To make a claim (to be something), to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.

5. professverb

   To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).

6. professverb

   To work as a professor of; to teach.

7. professverb

   To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).

8. Etymology: From professer, and its source, the participle stem of profiteri, from pro- + fateri.

Samuel Johnson's DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. To PROFESSverb

   Etymology: professer, Fr. from professus, Lat.

   1. To declare himself in strong terms of any opinion or passion.

   Would you have me speak after my custom,
   As being profess’d tyrant to their sex. William Shakespeare.

   Pretending first
   Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy. John Milton.

   A servant to thy sex, a slave to thee,
   A foe profest to barren chastity. John Dryden, Knight’s Tale.

   2. To make a show of any sentiments by loud declaration.

   Love well your father;
   To your professing bosoms I commit him. William Shakespeare.

   3. To declare publickly one’s skill in any art or science, so as to invite employment.

   What, master, read you? First resolve me that.
   —— I read that I profess the art of love. William Shakespeare.

   Without eyes thou shalt want light; profess not the knowledge therefore that thou hast not. Ecclus iii. 25.

2. To Professverb

   1. To declare openly.

   The day almost itself professes yours,
   And little is to do. William Shakespeare, Macbeth.

   They profess, that they know God, but in works they deny him. Tit. i. 16.

   Profess unto the Lord, that I am come unto the country, which the Lord sware unto our fathers. Deutr. xxvi. 3.

   2. To declare friendship. Not in use.

   As he does conceive,
   He is dishonour’d by a man, which ever
   Profess’d to him; why, his revenges must
   In that be made more bitter. William Shakespeare.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Professverb

   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. Professverb

   to set up a claim to; to make presence to; hence, to put on or present an appearance of

3. Professverb

   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. Professverb

   to take a profession upon one's self by a public declaration; to confess

5. Professverb

   to declare friendship

6. Etymology: [F. profs, masc., professe, fem., professed (monk or nun), L. professus, p. p. of profiteri to profess; pro before, forward + fateri to confess, own. See Confess.]

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Profess

   prō-fes′, v.t. to own freely: to make open declaration of: to declare in strong terms: to announce publicly one's skill in: to affirm one's belief in: (Spens.) to present the appearance of: (R.C.) to receive into a religious order by profession.—v.i. to enter publicly into a religious state: (Shak.) to pretend friendship.—adj. Professed′, openly declared: avowed: acknowledged.—adv. Profess′edly.—n. Profes′sion, the act of professing: open declaration: pretence: an employment not mechanical and requiring some degree of learning: calling or known employment: the collective body of persons engaged in any profession: entrance into a religious order.—adj. Profes′sional, pertaining to a profession: engaged in a profession: undertaken as a means of subsistence, as opposed to Amateur.—n. one who makes his living by an art, as opposed to an amateur who practises it merely for pastime.—n. Profes′sionalism.—adv. Profes′sionally.—ns. Profess′or, one who professes: one who openly declares belief in certain doctrines: one who publicly practises or teaches any branch of knowledge: a public and authorised teacher in a university:—fem. Profess′oress; Profess′orate, Professō′riāte, the office of a professor or public teacher: his period of office: body of professors.—adj. Professō′rial.—adv. Professō′rially.—n. Profess′orship. [Fr. profès, professed, said of a member of a religious order—L. professus, perf. p. of profitēri—pro, publicly, fatēri, to confess.]

Matched Categories

1. • Accept
   • Claim
   • Declare
   • Vow

How to pronounce profess?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say profess in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of profess in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of profess in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

Examples of profess in a Sentence

1. Frederick Douglass:

   If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

2. Morgan Potter:

   Our pitch to clients is that it is not about being all things to all people, we profess to be experts with international and Asian ETFs.

3. President Obama:

   From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith – their faith – profess to stand up for Islam but in fact are betraying it.

4. Jane Austen:

   I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

5. Matthew Henry:

   Women who profess the Christian religion, must be modest in apparel.”

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