profound
Formsprofounds, profounding, profounded
- 1Felt or experienced very deeply and intensely; pervading one's whole being.
Her speech stirred a profound sympathy in everyone who heard it.
He carried a profound gratitude toward the strangers who had saved his life.
Similardeep, intense, heartfelt, keen, great
Oppositeslight, mild, faint, superficial
Note
Intensity is the point here, and it can intensify the unwelcome as easily as the noble. Shakespeare jokes about "the most profound sciatica" in Measure for Measure, and Henry Hart Milman writes in 1860 of "profound corruption." Modern prose pairs it with effect and impact, as when Nigel Harris writes in RAIL (2023) that visiting rail wreckage "had a profound effect on me." It compares with more and most.
- 2Intellectually deep; reaching to the bottom of a subject and treating it thoroughly.
The lecture offered a profound analysis of the causes of the war.
Few scholars match her profound command of medieval law.
Similardeep, insightful, penetrating, thorough, learned
Oppositesuperficial, shallow, facile, trivial
Note
Depth of mind, and it attaches to people as readily as to their work: a profound scholar, a profound investigation, profound wisdom. Washington Irving, in The Sketch Book (1819), pairs it with philosophical in "profound and philosophical views of society." That pairing shows the company it keeps. It praises thinking that goes to the root of a subject, not thinking that is merely clever or intricate.
- 3Very deep or very serious in degree, scope, or importance.
The reforms had a profound impact on the nation's economy.
Her decision carried profound consequences for the years ahead.
Similarfar-reaching, major, significant, serious, great
Oppositeslight, minor, negligible, superficial
- 4Reaching or extending far below the surface; very deep.
The submersible descended into a profound trench on the ocean floor.
Geologists lowered instruments into the profound fissure to measure its temperature.
Similardeep, bottomless, yawning, cavernous
Oppositeshallow
Note
The literal depth that the other meanings grow from. The word came into Middle English through French, from Latin profundus, built on prō and fundus, "bottom." Something profound reaches toward a bottom far below. Milton sets it after its noun in Paradise Lost (1667): "A gulf profound." The figurative uses, intellectual depth and depth of feeling, keep that image of reaching the bottom.
- 5Expressing deep humility; bending low in a show of respect or submission.
The pilgrim knelt in profound reverence before the shrine.
She offered a profound curtsy that lowered her almost to the floor.
Oppositeslight
Note
Here the depth is in the body: a profound bow goes low, and the humility it shows follows from the bending. In Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the Manager retires with "a profound bow to his patrons." Brian Duppa's devotional writing praises "profound reverence." The word sits naturally with bow, curtsy and reverence. Used of a gesture, it describes the lowering itself, not only the feeling behind it.
- 6The deep open waters; the sea or ocean regarded as a vast depth.
They committed their fortunes to the trackless profound beyond the cape.
God, in the fathomlesse profound / Hath all his choice Commanders drown'd.
1638, George Sandys, A Paraphrase vpon the Divine PoemsNote
The adjective turned into a noun: the profound is the sea imagined as sheer, measureless depth. George Sandys writes in 1638 that God has drowned "all his choice Commanders" in "the fathomlesse profound." The noun is obsolete. A modern writer wanting the same effect would reach for the deep, which makes the same move from adjective to noun.
- 7A bottomless gulf or chasm; an abyss.
The bridge had collapsed, leaving a sheer profound where the road once ran.
Stones dropped from the ledge fell silently into the profound.
Note
Milton's abyss. In Book II of Paradise Lost (1667), the speaker asks for a course to "travel this profound." The noun for the sea names watery depth; this one names empty depth, a gulf with no bottom to strike. Like that noun, it is obsolete, and abyss or chasm now does its work.
- 8To make something sink deep, or to send it diving or reaching far downward.
Note
The verb that sends something else down. It takes an object, so one profounds a shaft or a weight. That separates it from the verb for diving deep, where the one diving goes under. Both verbs are obsolete; modern English says sink, drive down or deepen. Its forms are regular: profounds, profounding, profounded.
- 9To dive deeply, or to make one's way far into something.
But no man is likely to profound tbe Ocean of that Doctrine
1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia EpidemicaNote
Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica puts this verb to figurative work: no man, he writes, is likely to "profound the Ocean of that Doctrine." The dive is into a subject, and the ocean is a metaphor, close in spirit to the intellectual sense of the adjective. Today one would plumb or fathom such a depth instead.
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Origin
From Middle English profound, borrowed via Anglo-Norman profound and Old French profont from Latin profundus ("deep, profound"), which is formed from prō plus fundus ("bottom, foundation").