profess means to administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. It carries an Arena rating of 1754, earned across 54 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, profess ranks #446 of 13,217 for Most Malleable Words, #4,607 of 13,217 for Scariest Words, #4,936 of 13,217 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #5,542 of 13,217 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
profess is pronounced /pɹəˈfɛs/.
Why “profess” is a great word
PROFESS — [Verb] To declare or affirm something openly, often with an implication of formality, pretense, or insincerity. From Old French professer, from the participle stem of Latin profitērī, from pro- ("forth, publicly") + fatērī ("to confess, acknowledge"). The meaning "to declare openly" is attested from the 1520s. Unlike "confess," which implies a vulnerable admission of guilt, or "assert," which emphasizes forceful confidence, to profess is to mount a declaration on the public stage, where conviction and performance can blur. It is the politician's hollow vow, the lover's recited devotion after the feeling has fled, or the scholar's stated allegiance to a theory he no longer believes—a public ritual where the act of saying often substitutes for the harder work of being, leaving a testament to the gulf between what we say we are and what we quietly know ourselves to be.
Etymology
From Old French professer, and its source, the participle stem of Latin profitērī, from pro- + fatērī (“to confess, acknowledge”).
verb
- 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.”
- To declare oneself (to be something).“They've professed themselves delighted with the results.”
- To declare; to assert, affirm.“Having professed her belief in the remedy, she had little choice but to try it.”
- 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.”
- 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, […]”
- To work as a professor of; to teach.“he was a Spaniard, who about two hundred yeeres since professed Physicke in Tholouse[…].”
- To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).
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