profess
Americanverb (used with object)
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professes,
present (3rd person singular)
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professed,
past participle, past
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professing
present participle
-
to lay claim to, often insincerely; pretend to.
He professed extreme regret.
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to declare openly; announce or affirm; avow or acknowledge.
to profess one's satisfaction.
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to affirm faith in or allegiance to (a religion, God, etc.).
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to declare oneself skilled or expert in; claim to have knowledge of; make (a thing) one's profession or business.
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to teach as a professor.
She professes comparative literature.
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to receive or admit into a religious order.
verb (used without object)
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professes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
professed,
past participle, past
-
professing
present participle
-
to make a profession, avowal, or declaration.
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to take the vows of a religious order.
verb
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to affirm or announce (something, such as faith); acknowledge
to profess ignorance
to profess a belief in God
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(tr) to claim (something, such as a feeling or skill, or to be or do something), often insincerely or falsely
to profess to be a skilled driver
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to receive or be received into a religious order, as by taking vows
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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professsimple
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professessimple
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have professedperfect
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has professedperfect
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am professingprogressive
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are professingprogressive
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is professingprogressive
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have been professingperfect progressive
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has been professingperfect progressive
Past
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professedsimple
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had professedperfect
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was professingprogressive
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were professingprogressive
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had been professingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of profess
1400–50; late Middle English; back formation from professed
Explanation
To profess is to declare something, often insincerely. Your joy on the last day of school might lead you to profess that you'll truly miss seeing all the people who annoyed you all year. You can profess something and mean it, but more often the verb profess is used when someone lies about their true feelings. You might profess your love of your grandmother's tuna casserole, or profess that you never bite your fingernails, but you're just saying what you think people want to hear. The original meaning of profess described taking religious vows, and came from the Latin word professus, meaning "having declared publicly."
Vocabulary lists containing profess
Words That Could Go Either Way: Synonyms for "Maybe"
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"Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell
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The Taming of the Shrew
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ignorance about the city we profess to love.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
He continues to profess his confidence that Newey and Honda will eventually produce the best car and engine.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
What matters is state-led formations that profess loyalty to similar ideas, but are far stronger and more sophisticated than jihadists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Similarly, those in the media or the foreign policy establishment who profess dismay that China’s rulers now view the U.S. as a global equal are also failing to observe the obvious.
From Salon ● May 17, 2026
“To profess what?” asked the King of the Moat slowly, hardly opening his jaws and speaking through his nose.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
The exhibit, which professes to illustrate storytelling through art in its earliest manifestations, is a jarring introduction to a museum that houses 1,300 original works.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
Yet it simultaneously professes anxiety about an Asian American who has decidedly not stood apart from American institutions and culture: After graduating from Yale Law School, Wang clerked for two Supreme Court justices.
From Slate ● May 26, 2026
He professes a love for James Franco, drinking Guinness, thrifting, dancing in random bathrooms and delivering confessions from bed.
From Salon ● Dec. 26, 2025
They need to know what she’ll say if someone professes falling in love with her, for example, or if she’s presented with an unsafe situation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 6, 2025
“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
The next thing I think you start seeing is the court becoming interested in, despite its professed adherence to textualism, reading these statutes with an eyebrow raised.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
“In the past, I supported him because of the policies he professed to support and passionately campaigned on,” Greene wrote.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2026
In the probation report after the conviction, Brambles again professed his innocence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
He professed a belief in laissez-faire economics, signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, and remained over-focused on the value of the U.S. dollar.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
While all this was going on around him, Jefferson professed complete ignorance of his candidacy.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Then there were the officials whose job is literally to know things, professing not to know anything.
From Salon ● Sep. 17, 2026
Back in 2016, Taco Bell introduced its limited-time “quesalupa” to the Canadian market by calling on everyday fans to read scripts professing their love for the product in appropriately cheesy, ’80s-style dating videos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Three days later, he recanted that confession and spent the rest of his life professing his innocence, claiming that he was made a patsy for the real assassin, a man he called “Raoul.”
From Slate ● Dec. 1, 2025
He sent her videos professing his love for her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025
Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
