professor
Pluralprofessors
- 1A college or university teacher of high academic rank: the top rank in Britain and many other countries, any of the assistant, associate or full ranks in the US.
In American schools, students call almost any college instructor their professor, even a part-time lecturer.
She thanked her professor after the seminar and asked about the next reading.
UsageFor school teachers English uses teacher; professor is for colleges and universities. As a title: Professor Lee.
Note
In the US and the Philippines the title loosens, and students call almost any college teacher their professor, whether lecturer, instructor or holder of the senior rank. The usage is informal. It suits conversation and student writing better than a formal record of someone's position, where the actual rank should be named. Speakers from systems that reserve the word for the top grade may hear it as an overstatement.
- 2A person who openly declares belief in something, such as a religious doctrine.
As a professor of the new religion, he refused to renounce his beliefs before the court.
As for Religion, I have not said, much lesse meant irreverently of it, or of the Professors thereof.
1660, William Petty, Reflections upon some Persons and Things in IrelandNote
Here the word stays closest to its Latin root of declaring openly: a professor is a believer who says so. It usually takes of plus the creed. William Petty in 1660 writes of religion "or of the Professors thereof," and Mathers's translation, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, speaks of Magic and its Professors. Today it is archaic and easily misheard as academic, so the context must make the creed plain.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The word ultimately derives from a Latin verb meaning to declare openly. en.wiktionary.org
- William Petty's relevant work was published in 1660. en.wikipedia.org
- Mathers's English edition was published in 1898. esotericarchives.com
- Mathers's introduction speaks of magic and its professors. esotericarchives.com
- 3A practitioner who publicly performs or teaches an art or skill.
Note
A professor of an art was its public practitioner, someone who displayed a skill or taught it to others. Unlike the believer's sense, what is professed here is a craft rather than a creed: playing the virginals, say, or sleight-of-hand. The usage is obsolete and reaches back to Robert Greene's Thirde & Last Part of Conny-catching (1592). In modern prose it reads as period color rather than plain description.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Professor historically denoted someone who publicly practised or taught an art or skill. kaikki.org
- The term was applied to a player of the virginals. luminarium.org
- Professor has been applied to practitioners or teachers of sleight-of-hand. en.wikipedia.org
- Robert Greene wrote The Thirde and Last Part of Conny-catching, published in 1592. en.wikisource.org
- The practitioner sense is attested in Greene's 1592 work. luminarium.org
Use it in a sentence
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Origin
Latin profiteor ('to profess') had a past participle stem that gave professor, a 'declarer' or 'person who claims knowledge'; English took the word from Anglo-Norman proffessur.