Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Profession
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
. Bk. of Com. Prayer.
2.
That which one professed; a declaration; an avowal; a claim;
as, his
. professions
are insincereThe Indians quickly perceive the coincidence or the contradiction between
professions
and conduct. J. Morse.
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. Macaulay.
☞ 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 him5.
(Eccl. Law.)
The act of entering, or becoming a member of, a religious order.
Webster 1828 Edition
Profession
PROFES'SION
,Noun.
1.
Open declaration; public avowal or acknowledgment of one's sentiments or belief; as professions of friendship or sincerity; a profession of faith or religion. The professions of princes,when a crown is the bait, are a slender security.
The Indians quickly perceive the coincidence or the contradiction between professions and conduct, and their confidence or distrust follows of course.
2.
The business which one professes to understand and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as the learned professions. We speak of the profession of a clergyman, of a lawyer, and of a physician or surgeon; the profession of lecturer on chimistry or mineralogy. But the word is not applied to an occupation merely mechanical.3.
The collective body of persons engaged in a calling. We speak of practices honorable or disgraceful to a profession.4.
Among the Romanists,the entering into a religious order, by which a person offers himself to God by a vow of inviolable obedience, chastity and poverty.