Pro-fĕs'sion, n.
(-fĕsh'un), n. [Fr. profession, Pr. professio, Sp. profesión, It. professione, Lat. professio. See supra.]
Sense 1. The act of professing; open declaration; public avowal or acknowledgment; as, professions of friendship or sincerity; a profession of faith or religion.
Sense 2. That which one professes; a declaration; an avowal; a claim; a pretense.
The professions of princes, when a crown is the bait, are a slender security. Lesley.
The Indians quickly perceive the coincidence or the contradiction between professions and conduct, and their confidence or distrust follows of course. J. Morse.
Sense 3. That of which one professes knowledge; the occupation, if not mechanical, agricultural, or the like, to which one devotes himself; the business which one professes to understand and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as, the profession of a clergyman, of a lawyer, and of a physician or surgeon; the profession of lecturer on chemistry or mineralogy.
He tried five or six professions, in turn, without success. Macaulay.
The three professions, or learned professions, are, especially, theology, law, and medicine.
Sense 4. The collective body of persons engaged in a calling.
Sense 5. (Eccl. Law.) The act of entering or becoming a member of a religious order.