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
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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
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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:
He continues to profess his confidence that Newey and Honda will eventually produce the best car and engine.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
I profess no ultimate wisdom but that’s what I’m getting from the comments that they make.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 21, 2026
The two profess their love for each other.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
Once lawfully allowed in with provisional humanitarian status, they found our church — where they could be baptized and publicly profess their faith in Jesus — and legal help to begin their asylum request.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025
A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
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
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
To his credit, author Michael Scherer professes good intentions in featuring Kennedy in such an adulatory light: to help bridge some of the political division plaguing our country.
From Salon ● Nov. 29, 2025
But Bonneville professes to be a huge Christmas fan.
From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2025
The first, which will perhaps become increasingly important in an inquisitive age which professes to still value privacy, makes it possible to obtain sensitive information about a group of people without compromising any person’s privacy.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
In the probation report after the conviction, Brambles again professed his innocence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
Xi Jinping must have chuckled at the president’s professed outrage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
Though he professed to not know the mainland scene "very well", he pinpointed animation and small-scale productions as bright spots.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
But Nexstar seems to be only aggravating the tension between its professed Middle America branding and its actual business moves.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2026
This is when she professed a desire to travel—she hadn’t yet said alone—and then in the next breath admitted she’d told the school people not to call for a while.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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
He began to distance himself from his past activism, professing to be unfamiliar with the anti-discrimination legislation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported at the time.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 14, 2024
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.
