All 7 Uses
profess
in
Volpone
(Auto-generated)
- You seem To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race:—I not profess it, but my fate hath been To be, where I have been consulted with, In this high kind, touching some great men's sons, Persons of blood, and honour.†
Act 2 *profess = claim
- : Profess obstinate silence, That's now my safest.†
Act 3
- Should I offer this To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood That had read Aretine, conn'd all his prints, Knew every quirk within lust's labyrinth, And were professed critic in lechery; And I would look upon him, and applaud him, This were a sin: but here, 'tis contrary, A pious work, mere charity for physic, And honest polity, to assure mine own.†
Act 3professed = claimed
- And then, for your religion, profess none, But wonder at the diversity, of all: And, for your part, protest, were there no other But simply the laws o' the land, you could content you, Nic.†
Act 4profess = claim
- MOS: It was much better that you should profess Yourself a cuckold thus, than that the other Should have been prov'd.†
Act 4
- Are not you he that have to-day in court Profess'd the disinheriting of your son?†
Act 5
- Professeth, that the gentleman was wrong'd, And that the gentlewoman was brought thither, Forced by her husband, and there left.†
Act 5professeth = claimsstandard suffix: Today, the suffix "-eth" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She professeth" in older English, today we say "She professes."
Definitions:
-
(1)
(profess) to claim or declare -- often insincerely
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much more rarely, profess can mean:
- to teach or be knowledgeable of -- as in "profess chemistry"
- practice as a profession -- as in "profess medicine"
- proclaim belief in or allegiance to -- as in "profess Catholicism"