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Profess vs Accuse - What's the difference?

profess | accuse | Related terms |

In transitive terms the difference between profess and accuse

is that profess is to work as a professor of; to teach while accuse is to charge with having committed a crime or offence.

As a noun accuse is

an accusation.

profess

English

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 .
  • accuse

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Verb

    (accus)
  • To find fault with, to blame, to censure.
  • * (rfdate) (Epistle to the Romans) 2:15,
  • Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.
  • * (rfdate) ,
  • We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms.
  • To charge with having committed a crime or offence.
  • * (rfdate) (Acts of the Apostles) 24:13,
  • Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.
  • To make an accusation against someone.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Obama goes troll-hunting , passage=According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.}}

    Usage notes

    * (legal) When used this way accused is followed by the word of . * Synonym notes: To accuse , charge, impeach, arraign: these words agree in bringing home to a person the imputation of wrongdoing. ** To accuse'' is a somewhat formal act, and is applied usually (though not exclusively) to crimes; as, to ''accuse of treason. ** Charge'' is the most generic. It may refer to a crime, a dereliction of duty, a fault, etc.; more commonly it refers to moral delinquencies; as, to ''charge with dishonesty or falsehood. ** To arraign'' is to bring (a person) before a tribunal for trial; as, to ''arraign one before a court or at the bar public opinion. ** To impeach'' is officially to charge with misbehavior in office; as, to ''impeach a minister of high crimes. ** Both impeach'' and ''arraign convey the idea of peculiar dignity or impressiveness.

    Synonyms

    * (legal) charge, indict, impeach, arraign * () blame, censure, reproach, criminate

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An accusation.
  • (Shakespeare)