the act of professing or claiming; open declaration; public avowal or acknowledgment; as, professions of friendship; a profession of faith.-that which one professed; a declaration; an avowal; a claim; as, his professions are insincere.-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.-the collective body of persons engaged in a calling; as, the profession distrust him.-the act of entering, or becoming a member of, a religious order.