PROFESSING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does professing mean? 

• PROFESSING (noun)
  The noun PROFESSING has 1 sense:

1. an open avowal (true or false) of some belief or opinion

  Familiarity information: PROFESSING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROFESSING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An open avowal (true or false) of some belief or opinion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

professing; profession

Context example:

a profession of disagreement

Hypernyms ("professing" is a kind of...):

affirmation; avouchment; avowal (a statement asserting the existence or the truth of something)

Derivation:

profess (confess one's faith in, or allegiance to)

 Context examples 

Grant, professing an indisposition, for which he had little credit with his fair sister-in-law, could not spare his wife.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He defended himself; though professing that he would never willingly admit any ladies on board a ship of his, excepting for a ball, or a visit, which a few hours might comprehend.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He received my proposition with more compliance than is usual among writers, especially those of the projecting species, professing “he would be glad to receive further information.”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Without scruple—without apology—without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I shall not say you are mistaken, he replied, because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the general's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

A woman married only six months ago; a man professing himself devoted, even engaged to another; that other her near relation; the whole family, both families connected as they were by tie upon tie; all friends, all intimate together!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I found that my services were constantly called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian—HEEP—was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused gentleman.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence, and tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission to her taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with the superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled, and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)