profess

1. 1.

   practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about

   “She professes organic chemistry”

   Broaderclaim
2. 2.

   confess one's faith in, or allegiance to

   “The terrorists professed allegiance to their country”

   “he professes to be a Communist”

   Broaderdeclare
3. 3.

   admit (to a wrongdoing)

   “She confessed that she had taken the money”

   Synonymsconcedeconfess

   Broaderadmit

   Narrowermake a clean breast of
4. 4.

   state freely

   “The teacher professed that he was not generous when it came to giving good grades”

   Broaderdeclare
5. 5.

   receive into a religious order or congregation

   Broaderaccept
6. 6.

   take vows, as in religious order

   “she professed herself as a nun”

   Broadervow

   Narrowertake the veil
7. 7.

   state insincerely

   “He professed innocence but later admitted his guilt”

   “She pretended not to have known the suicide bomber”

   “She pretends to be an expert on wine”

   Synonymspretend

   Broaderclaim

Other forms of profess

past tense

professed·

present participle

professing·

third person

professes·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about profess

What does profess mean?

profess means "practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in profess?

profess has 2 syllables: pro-fess. The stress falls on "fess". In IPA it is /pɹəˈfɛs/.

What is another word for profess?

Close synonyms include concede, confess, pretend. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is profess a common word?

profess is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with profess?

2 words rhyme with profess. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.