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 .

Verb

(promot)

To raise (someone) to a more important, responsible, or remunerative job or rank.

He promoted his clerk to office manager.

Having crossed the chessboard, his pawn was promoted to a queen.

To advocate or urge on behalf of (something or someone); to attempt to popularize or sell by means of advertising or publicity.

They promoted the abolition of daylight saving time.

They promoted the new film with giant billboards.

To encourage, urge or incite

{{quote-Fanny Hill, part=5 , so that finding myself on the point of going, and loath to leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I employed all the forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested to me, to promote his keeping me company to our journey's end}}

To elevate to the above league.

At the end of the season, three teams are promoted to the Premier League.

(label) To increase the activity of a catalyst by changing its surface structure

(label) To exchange a pawn for a queen or other piece when it reaches the 8th rank