profess

verb

1. (transitive)To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order.

   “This swayed the balance decisively in Mary's favour, and she was professed on 8 September 1578.”

2. (reflexive)To declare oneself (to be something).

   “They've professed themselves delighted with the results.”

   “Kiefer professes himself amused by the fuss that ensued when he announced that he was buying the Mülheim-Kärlich reactor[…].”

3. (ambitransitive)To declare; to assert, affirm.

   “Having professed her belief in the remedy, she had little choice but to try it.”

   “He professes to haue receiued no sinister measure from his Iudge, but most willingly humbles himselfe to the determination of Iustice[…].”

   “The best and wisest of them all professed / To know this only, that he nothing knew.”

   “The guard was paying no attention whatever to the running of his train, in total disregard of rules, and, as the recently-published report of a Ministry of Transport Inspecting Officer of Railways shows, there were other disquieting features in the case, such as ignorance on the part of responsible men of rules and appendix instructions and a lax attitude to regulations of which they professed to be aware, combined with failure to look at staff notice boards.”

   “The Governor immediately professed that he knew nothing about the incident.”

4. (transitive)To make a claim (to be something); to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.

   “Many profess to despise what secretly they hunger after.”

   “Ed Miliband professed ignorance of the comment when he was approached by the BBC later.”

   “Caution needs to be exercised in regards to claims of coinage as the data contained a number of examples of writers professing the invention of a term that had actually been in existence for many years.”

5. (transitive)To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).

   “[N]ow ſuch a liue vngodly, vvithout a care of doing the wil of the Lord (though they profeſſe him in their mouths, yea though they beleeue and acknowledge all the Articles of the Creed, yea haue knowledge of the Scripturs) yet if they liue vngodly, they deny God, and therefore ſhal be denied, […]”

   “The remainder of the population, about two-thirds, belongs to the Mongolian race and professes Buddhism.”

6. (transitive)To work as a professor of; to teach.

   “he was a Spaniard, who about two hundred yeeres since professed Physicke in Tholouse[…].”

7. (archaic, transitive)To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).