profess

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To affirm openly; declare or claim: "a physics major [who] professes to be a stickler when it comes to data” ( Gina Maranto).
2. v. To make a pretense of; pretend: "top officials who were deeply involved with the arms sales but later professed ignorance of them” ( David Johnston).
3. v. To practice as a profession or claim knowledge of: profess medicine.
4. v. To teach (a subject) as a professor: profess literature.
5. v. To affirm belief in: profess Catholicism.
6. v. To receive into a religious order or congregation.
7. v. To make an open affirmation.
8. v. To take the vows of a religious order or congregation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To declare openly; make open declaration of; avow or acknowledge; own freely; affirm.
2. To acknowledge or own publicly; also, to lay claim openly to the character of.
3. To affirm faith in or allegiance to: as, to profess Christianity.
4. To make a show of; make protestations of; make a pretense of; pretend.
5. To announce publicly one's skill in, as a science or a profession; declare one's self versed in: as, to profess surgery.
6. In the Rom. Cath. and Anglican churches, to receive into a religious order by profession.
7. To present the appearance of.
8. Synonyms and To declare, allege, aver, avouch.
9. To lay claim to.
10. To declare openly; make any declaration or assertion.
11. To enter into the religious state by public declaration or profession.
12. To declare or pretend friendship.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To make open declaration of, as of one's knowledge, belief, action, etc.; to avow or acknowledge; to confess publicly; to own or admit freely.
2. v. To set up a claim to; to make presence to; hence, to put on or present an appearance of.
3. v. 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)
4. v. To take a profession upon one's self by a public declaration; to confess.
5. v. obsolete To declare friendship.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. state freely
2. v. practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about
3. v. admit (to a wrongdoing)
4. v. confess one's faith in, or allegiance to
5. v. take vows, as in religious order
6. v. state insincerely
7. v. receive into a religious order or congregation