professor

American  

[pruh-fes-er] / prəˈfɛs ər /

noun

• professors
  plural

1. a teacher of the highest academic rank in a college or university, who has been awarded the title Professor in a particular branch of learning; a full professor.

   a professor of Spanish literature.

2. any teacher who has the rank of professor, associate professor, or assistant professor.

3. a teacher.

4. an instructor in some art or skilled sport.

   a professor of singing; a professor of boxing.

5. a person who professes or declares particular sentiments, beliefs, etc.

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professor British  

/ prəˈfɛsə /

noun

1. the principal lecturer or teacher in a field of learning at a university or college; a holder of a university chair

2. any teacher in a university or college See also associate professor assistant professor full professor

3. a person who claims skill and instructs others in some sport, occupation, etc

4. a person who professes his opinions, beliefs, etc

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• professorialism
  noun
• subprofessor
  noun
• nonprofessorial
  adjective
• professorial
  adjective
• pseudoprofessorial
  adjective
• unprofessorial
  adjective
• nonprofessorially
  adverb
• professorially
  adverb
• unprofessorially
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• professors
  plural

Etymology

Origin of professor

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English from Medieval Latin prōfessor “one who has taken the vows of a religious order,” Latin: “a public lecturer,” equivalent to prō- pro- ¹ + -fet-, combining form of fatērī “to acknowledge, declare” + -tor -tor, with tt becoming ss

Explanation

A professor is someone who teaches at a college or university. Professor is officially a teacher of the highest rank, above adjuncts and lecturers, but college students can call them all professor. The Latin origin of the word means “declare publicly,” and professors are responsible for publicly sharing their knowledge with the world, or at least with whoever can afford to pay them for lessons. Although anyone teaching college can be called a professor, it’s really a title that has to be earned by going to graduate school and moving up by being an assistant professor, then associate professor, and finally a full professor.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

professor professors

Harvey K. Rosenbaum, an emeritus clinical professor of anesthesiology at UCLA’s medical school, thanked Frenk for his “forthright statement” during public comment at this week’s UC regents meetings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026

Watanabe and Griswold joined forces with theoretical biophysicist Padmini Rangamani, Ph.D., a professor of pharmacology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, to investigate how the surrounding membrane might shape the axon.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026

Sandwiched between was a massive new work, “Invisible House,” co-commissioned by this orchestra and the conductor’s former one, composed by a not especially famous Canadian, Zosha Di Castri, a music professor at Columbia University.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

Europeans, and especially Western Europe's leadership elites, have succumbed to a decades-long "crisis of disbelief", argues Andrew Michta, a Polish-born American academic who is professor of strategic studies at the Hamilton School, University of Florida.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

Her dad is a professor, too, but he’s on something called sabbatical.

From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish

Pro-testing professors have dominated public comment at earlier regents meetings, pointing to all eight Ivy League campuses, Caltech and Stanford, which reintroduced testing after dropping it around the pandemic over test access and equity concerns.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

This month, more than 5,000 Jewish public figures and allies — including several UC professors — signed an open letter opposing the accusation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2026

The professors updated their study in 2023 and reached similar results.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

She earned a physics degree in Venezuela in 2023—schooling that took about 18 months longer than normal because so many professors had left the country.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

The last time I saw her was the night of Professor Ghering's lecture, when she stood along the wall, nodding in agreement as I protested using that poor man in that professors ill-conceived experiment.

From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland

Related Words

• assistant
• educator
• faculty member
• fellow
• instructor
• lecturer
• principal
• teacher
• tutor