profess

Verb

Verb Forms: professed, professing, professes

• To affirm openly; to declare or state.
• practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about
  • "She professes organic chemistry"
• confess one's faith in, or allegiance to
  • "The terrorists professed allegiance to their country"
  • "he professes to be a Communist"
• admit (to a wrongdoing)
• state freely
  • "The teacher professed that he was not generous when it came to giving good grades"
• receive into a religious order or congregation
• take vows, as in religious order
  • "she professed herself as a nun"
• state insincerely
  • "He professed innocence but later admitted his guilt"
• To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order.
• To declare oneself (to be something).
• To declare; to assert, affirm.
• To make a claim (to be something); to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.
• To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).
• To work as a professor of; to teach.
• To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).

Examples

• He would profess his strategy only after the Scrabble tournament was over.

Synonyms

concede, confess, pretend

Related Words

profession, professor