Word Direct Answers

profess

profess is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 4 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.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.
  2. 2.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.
  3. 3.To take a profession upon one's self by a public declaration; to confess. Drayton.
  4. 4.To declare friendship. [Obs.] Shak.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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