PROFESSION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Profession

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/prəfˈɛʃən/ Listen

noun

Profession n.

1.

The act of professing or claiming; open declaration; public avowal or acknowledgment; as, professions of friendship; a profession of faith. "A solemn vow, promise, and profession."

2.

That which one professed; a declaration; an avowal; a claim; as, his professions are insincere. "The Indians quickly perceive the coincidence or the contradiction between professions and conduct."

3.

That of which one professed knowledge; the occupation, if not mechanical, agricultural, or the like, to which one devotes one's self; the business which one professes to understand, and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as, the profession of arms; the profession of a clergyman, lawyer, or physician; the profession of lecturer on chemistry. "Hi tried five or six professions in turn." Note: The three professions, or learned professions, are, especially, theology, law, and medicine.

4.

The collective body of persons engaged in a calling; as, the profession distrust him.

5.

(Eccl. Law.) The act of entering, or becoming a member of, a religious order.

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Etymology of 'Profession'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Profession" Quotes from Famous Books

... the assistant of the great Sorceress. I've the right to make a servant girl for my wife, you know, or a Glass Cat to catch our mice—which she refuses to do—but I am forbidden to work magic for others, or to use it as a profession." ...

— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... said, "and so I must tell you. It is written by a brother of Mr. Lemuel, the artist I have often spoken to you about. He is by profession an architect; but if this play should turn out to be as fine as some people say it is, he ought to take to dramatic writing. In fact, all the Lemuels—there are three brothers of them, you know—are like Michael Angelo and Leonardo—artists ...

— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... said quietly, "the owner of this knife is not a sailor by profession. He is probably a schoolmaster. I can't be sure of that, but I can say this definitely: he is a professional man of some sort, possibly an engineer, but, as I say, more probably a mathematical master. He is left-handed, has red hair, a wife, and at ...

— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... the warm-hearted James Burness sent his cousin ten pounds on the 29th of July—he sent five pounds afterwards to the family, and offered to take one of the boys, and educate him in his own profession of a writer. All this was unknown to the ...

— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... may take notice, that where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it was delivered to us by antiquity, when he should have given us the picture of a rough young man, of the Amazonian strain, a jolly huntsman, and both by his profession and his early rising a mortal enemy to love, he has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry sent him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and transformed the Hippolitus of Euripides into Monsieur Hippolite. I should not have troubled myself thus far with ...

— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

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