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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
profess
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
love
▪ George would spend early evenings lying on the hillside with her, professing his love.
▪ He seizes her hand and professes his violent love for her.
▪ It was a recording of a phone conversation allegedly between the Princess and an admirer, who professed his love for her.
▪ Soon enough, Ferdinand was professing his love and asking her to marry him.
▪ In two days' time, the calendar dictates that we must profess love to those we hold dear.
▪ Often she will be able to sleep with rising superstars and juvenile celebrities who will profess love but never contemplate marrying her.
▪ Never for a moment did I doubt the acceptability to an investment banker of a professed love of money.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ For months, Derek had wanted to profess his love for Beth.
▪ In Mexico, ninety percent of the people profess Catholicism.
▪ Lewis professed his innocence.
▪ Speaking softly, Prucell professed her dislike of giving interviews.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He professed to be mates with all the Revie team now as then.
▪ It professes no particular architectural creed; it belongs to no recognisable school of design.
▪ Often she will be able to sleep with rising superstars and juvenile celebrities who will profess love but never contemplate marrying her.
▪ She professed to have been a cook in a house where I was once governess.
▪ She was not then perpetually professed.
▪ What they did not profess to understand was how it could be terminated.
▪ While Norm professed dismay with his thievery, he always kept what Benjy brought him.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Profess

Profess \Pro*fess"\ (pr[-o]*f[e^]s"), v. i.

  1. To take a profession upon one's self by a public declaration; to confess.
    --Drayton.

  2. To declare friendship. [Obs.]
    --Shak.

Profess

Profess \Pro*fess"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Professed; p. pr. & vb. n. Professing.] [F. prof[`e]s, masc., professe, fem., professed (monk or nun), L. professus, p. p. of profiteri to profess; pro before, forward + fateri to confess, own. See Confess.]

  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. ``Hear me profess sincerely.''
    --Shak.

    The best and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.
    --Milton.

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

    I do profess to be no less than I seem.
    --Shak.

  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.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
profess

early 14c., "to take a vow" (in a religious order), a back-formation from profession or else from Old French profes, from Medieval Latin professus "avowed," literally "having declared publicly," past participle of Latin profiteri "declare openly, testify voluntarily, acknowledge, make public statement of," from pro- "forth" (see pro-) + fateri (past participle fassus) "acknowledge, confess," akin to fari "speak" (see fame (n.)). Meaning "declare openly" first recorded 1520s, "a direct borrowing of the sense from Latin" [Barnhart]. Related: Professed; professing.

Wiktionary
profess

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. (Chiefly in passive.) (from 14th c.) 2 (context reflexive English) To declare oneself (to be something). (from 16th c.) 3 (context ambitransitive English) To declare; to assert, affirm. (from 16th c.)

WordNet
profess
  1. v. practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about; "She professes organic chemistry"

  2. confess one's faith in, or allegiance to; "The terrorists professed allegiance to the Muslim faith"; "he professes to be a Communist"

  3. admit, make a clean breast of; "She confessed that she had taken the money" [syn: concede, confess]

  4. state freely; "The teacher professed that he was not generous when it came to giving good grades"

  5. receive into a religious order or congregation

  6. take vows, as in religious order; "she professed herself as a nun"

  7. 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" [syn: pretend]

Usage examples of "profess".

Executives at Stern Corporation, also interviewed, professed ignorance of any illegal or improper dealings and maintained that antisense research had been a field of particular interest at the company for a number of years.

When it began to thunder and lighten, however, and to grow black in the northeast, Brith professed recurring symptoms of piety.

States had been troubled by divers ill-intentioned persons pretending to have received revelations from another World, and professing to produce demonstrations whereby they had instigated to frenzy both themselves and others, it had been for this cause unanimously resolved by the Grand Council that on the first day of each millenary, special injunctions be sent to the Prefects in the several districts of Flatland, to make strict search for such misguided persons, and without formality of mathematical examination, to destroy all such as were Isosceles of any degree, to scourge and imprison any regular Triangle, to cause any Square or Pentagon to be sent to the district Asylum, and to arrest any one of higher rank, sending him straightway to the Capital to be examined and judged by the Council.

Indeed, professed to have outgrown nationalism, and to stand for political and cultural world unity.

You, on the contrary, aided by the wings of imagination, outsoar that limit, and profess to find angels, star-kingdoms, and God Himself.

Lanargh offered a wider range of services than she had ever imagined, from palmists and professed witches all the way to esteemed phrenologists, equipped with calipers, cranial tapes, and ornate charts.

At first he had identified the style as medieval European, but he decided that it was more like Tudor when he started along the lane that professed to be the main street, for there he saw older structures, whose beams had turned black and pargeting white.

He even went so far as to profess a contempt for parliamentarism itself.

Frankly, I find it hard to see how a state can be both pro-slavery and antisecession, as persnickety Kentucky seems to be, but the Ancient is willing to take the most egregious abuse from the abolitionist Jacobins among the Republicans rather than offend the peace Democrats who still profess to be loyal.

That he might remove every suspicion, he resigned the Imperial purple a second time, professing himself at length convinced of the vanity of greatness and ambition.

The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion.

The government of Italy, and of the young emperor, naturally devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instill into the mind of her son.

Despatches were also sent to Franklin, in England, containing an account of the Lexington battle, and enclosing an address to the people of Great Britain, complaining of the conduct of the troops, professing great loyalty, but appealing to Heaven for the justice of their cause, and declaring their determination to die rather than sacrifice their liberty.

Trent, in which, besides professing her attachment to the Catholic faith, she took notice of her title to succeed to the crown of England, and expressed her hopes of being able, in some period, to bring back all her dominions to the bosom of the church.

If at the present time ten years of public notoriety have passed over any doctrine professing to be of importance in medical science, and if it has not succeeded in raising up a powerful body of able, learned, and ingenious advocates for its claims, the fault must be in the doctrine and not in the medical profession.