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English
Etymology
From Old French professer, and its source, the participle stem of Latin profitērī, from pro- + fatērī (“to confess, acknowledge”).
Pronunciation
Verb
profess (third-person singular simple present professes, present participle professing, simple past and past participle professed)
- (transitive, chiefly passive voice) To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. [from 14th c.]
2000, Butler's Lives of the Saints, page 118:This swayed the balance decisively in Mary's favour, and she was professed on 8 September 1578.
- (reflexive) To declare oneself (to be something). [from 16th c.]
They've professed themselves delighted with the results.
2011 December 9, Alex Needham, “Anselm Kiefer: ‘Art is difficult, it's not entertainment’”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 October 2026:Kiefer professes himself amused by the fuss that ensued when he announced that he was buying the Mülheim-Kärlich reactor […].
- (ambitransitive) To declare; to assert, affirm. [from 16th c.]
Having professed her belief in the remedy, she had little choice but to try it.
c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:He professes to haue receiued no sinister measure from his Iudge, but most willingly humbles himselfe to the determination of Iustice […].
1956 September, “Notes and News: The Barby Sidings Accident Report”, in Railway Magazine, page 638:The guard was paying no attention whatever to the running of his train, in total disregard of rules, and, as the recently-published report of a Ministry of Transport Inspecting Officer of Railways shows, there were other disquieting features in the case, such as ignorance on the part of responsible men of rules and appendix instructions and a lax attitude to regulations of which they professed to be aware, combined with failure to look at staff notice boards.
1974 February 11, “The Kansas Kickbacks”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC:The Governor immediately professed that he knew nothing about the incident.
2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly[2], volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 13 October 2026, page 18:WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.
- (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.]
Many profess to despise what secretly they hunger after.
2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide[4], page 13:Caution needs to be exercised in regards to claims of coinage as the data contained a number of examples of writers professing the invention of a term that had actually been in existence for many years.
- (transitive) To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.). [from 16th c.]
1604, Jeremy Corderoy, A Short Dialogve, wherein is Proved, that No Man can be Saved without Good VVorkes, 2nd edition, Oxford: Printed by Ioseph Barnes, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard at the signe of the Crowne, by Simon Waterson, →OCLC, page 40:[N]ow ſuch a liue vngodly, vvithout a care of doing the wil of the Lord (though they profeſſe him in their mouths, yea though they beleeue and acknowledge all the Articles of the Creed, yea haue knowledge of the Scripturs) yet if they liue vngodly, they deny God, and therefore ſhal be denied, […]
1983, Alexander Mcleish, The Frontier Peoples of India, Mittal Publications, published 1984, page 122:The remainder of the population, about two-thirds, belongs to the Mongolian race and professes Buddhism.
- (transitive) To work as a professor of; to teach. [from 16th c.]
- (transitive, now rare) To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter). [from 16th c.]
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to administer the vows of a religious order to (someone) to admit to a religious order (reflexive) to declare oneself (to be something) to declare; to assert; to affirm to declare one's adherence to to work as a professor of; to teach Further reading
- “profess”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “profess”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
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