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.

---

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

---

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

"I was halfway through a Scandi crime drama when everything went off," the professor at Lancaster University told the BBC.

From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2026

Research co-authored by Matteo Sandi, an economics professor at the University of Milan, looked at children growing up in areas where Right to Buy uptake was highest.

From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026

“There’s no 100% security measure,” said Erroll Southers, a professor at the University of Southern California who was assistant chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence at Los Angeles’s international airport authority.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026

Lorena Lopez, an assistant extension professor in NC State's Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and a co-author of the study, explained that the discovery brings both encouraging and troubling news.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026

The UN Refugee Agency had sent out a bulletin about Mariam, and Habib’s professor and his sons were looking for any news of her in Jalalabad.

From "Shooting Kabul" by N. H. Senzai

Business-school professors Janet Gao of Georgetown, Jun Oh of Purdue and Joseph Pacelli of Harvard used AI to do a deep dive into an online database containing the résumés of 2.9 million American workers.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026

For example, a 2008 study of equity analysts by Harvard professors found that those analysts’ performance dropped when they moved firms, and didn’t return to its previous level for more than two years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026

Various groups, including university professors, artists and opposition parties, have announced their support or attendance.

From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2026

The ten-member research team was led by Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth, professors in UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2026

Green was one of the oldest professors on campus, with gray hair that bushed out above his ears like the cheeks of a chipmunk.

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

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

---