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feign; to impose. Wondering . . . whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming. Macaulay.

A suffix denoting state, office, dignity, profession, or art; as in lordship, friendship, chancellorship, stewardship, horsemanship.

e; sharp-witted; sagacious; keen; as, a shrewd observer; a shrewd design; a shrewd reply. Professing to despise the ill opinion of mankind creates a shrewd suspicion that we have deserved it. Secker.

One who sings; especially, one whose profession is to sing.

y or advocate; one who represents another in court; -- formerly, in English practice, the professional designation of a person admitted to practice in a court of chancery or equity. See the Note under Attorney.

and contempt. Many of the Sophists doubdtless card not for truth or morality, and merely professed to teach how to make the worse appear the better reason; but there scems no reason to hold that they were a special class, teaching special opinions; even Socrates and Plato were sometimes styled Sophists. Liddell & Scot…

as, to sophisticate wine. Howell. To sophisticate the understanding. Southey. Yet Butler professes to stick to plain facts, not to sophisticate, not to refine. M. Arnold. They purchase but sophisticated ware. Dryden.

A follower of Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), an Englishwoman who, professing to have received a miraculous calling, preached and prophesied, and committed many impious absurdities.

The quality or state of being specious; speciousness. Professions built so largely on speciosity, instead of performance. Carlyle.

One who professes a regard for spiritual things only; one whose employment is of a spiritual character; an ecclesiastic.

One who at the baptism of an infant professore the christian faith in its name, and guarantees its religious education; a godfather or godmother.

The floor for scenic performances; hence, the theater; the playhouse; hence, also, the profession of representing dramatic compositions; the drama, as acted or exhibited. Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage. Pope. Lo! Where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.…

- To stand for. (a) To side with; to espouse the cause of; to support; to maintain, or to profess or attempt to maintain; to defend. "I stand wholly for you." Shak. (b) To be in the place of; to be the substitute or to represent; as, a cipher at the left hand of a figure stands for nothing. "I will not trouble myself,…

Any body of men united by profession, or constituting a community of a particular character; as, the civil and ecclesiastical states, or the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons, in Great Britain. Cf. Estate, n., 6.

ry out secretly; as, to steal a look. Always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, . . . and do not think to steal it. Bacon. To steal a march, to march in a covert way; to gain an advantage unobserved; -- formerly followed by of, but now by on or upon, and sometimes by over; as, to steal a m…

One who, or that which, stings. Professor E. Forbes states that only a small minority of the medusæ of our seas are stingers. Owen.

rt; to pay. Evelyn. It is good to endow colleges, and to found chairs, and to stipendiate professors. I. Taylor.

Hence, a person not easily excited; an apathetic person; one who is apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain. A Stoic of the woods, a man without a tear. Campbell. School of Stoics. See The Porch, under Porch.

Obstinate; sullen; haughty. A little, bold, solemn, stomachy man, a great professor of piety. R. L. Stevenson.

er; a pupil; a scholar; especially, one who attends a school, or who seeks knowledge from professional teachers or from books; as, the students of an academy, a college, or a university; a medical student; a hard student. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book. Shak.