Verb

(en verb)

To affirm to be correct, true, or genuine.

When will the appraiser attest the date of the painting?

* Addison

facts attested by particular pagan authors

* 1599 — Shakespeare, iii 1'' (Act ii in ''First Folio edition)

Dishonour not your Mothers: now attest that those whom you call'd Fathers, did beget you.

To certify by signature or oath

You must attest your will in order for it to be valid.

To certify in an official capacity.

To supply or be evidence of

Her fine work attested her ability.

*

The supplementary bibliography (in Vol. VI) attests to the comprehensiveness of the effort.

* 1599 — Shakespeare, Prologue'' (''First Folio edition)

O pardon : since a crooked Figure may / Attest in little place a Million, / And let us, Cyphers to this great Accompt, / On your imaginarie Forces worke.

To put under oath.

To call to witness; to invoke.

* Dryden

The sacred streams which Heaven's imperial state / Attests in oaths, and fears to violate.

Verb

(es)

To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. (Chiefly in passive.)

* 2000 , Butler's Lives of the Saints , p.118:

This swayed the balance decisively in Mary's favour, and she was professed on 8 September 1578.

(reflexive) To declare oneself (to be something).

* 2011 , Alex Needham, The Guardian , 9 Dec.:

Kiefer professes himself amused by the fuss that ensued when he announced that he was buying the Mülheim-Kärlich reactor.

(ambitransitive) To declare; to assert, affirm.

* c. 1604 , (William Shakespeare), Measure for Measure , First Folio 1623:

He professes to haue receiued no sinister measure from his Iudge, but most willingly humbles himselfe to the determination of Iustice.

* Milton

The best and wisest of them all professed / To know this only, that he nothing knew.

* 1974 , ‘The Kansas Kickbacks’, Time , 11 Feb 1974:

The Governor immediately professed that he knew nothing about the incident.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)

, volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected,

To make a claim (to be something), to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.

* 2010 , Hélène Mulholland, The Guardian , 28 Sep 2010:

Ed Miliband professed ignorance of the comment when he was approached by the BBC later.

To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).

* 1983 , Alexander Mcleish, The Frontier Peoples of India , Mittal Publications 1984, p.122:

The remainder of the population, about two-thirds, belongs to the Mongolian race and professes Buddhism.

To work as a professor of; to teach.

*, II.12:

*:he was a Spaniard, who about two hundred yeeres since professed Physicke in Tholouse .