Other forms: professions
A profession is a job that needs long education, like medicine or law. The legal profession, enter the profession, a respected profession.
What distinguishes one from a trade is self-regulation as much as training: a profession sets its own standards and can strike a member off. A profession is also a declaration — a profession of faith — which is the older sense and where the word comes from: professing was declaring your vows publicly.
1nounprofessionA job that needs long education and self-regulation.
“Doctors who break the rules can be thrown out of the medical profession.”
2nounpublicA public declaration.
“His sudden profession of love surprised her completely.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
profession is an occupation, or a declaration.
Also accepted in games: occupation
Latin professio means a public declaration, from profiteri, to declare openly. Professor and profess come from the same declaring.
Old French
profession
Anglo-Norman
professioun
Middle English
professioun
English, today
profession
Built from
From Middle English professioun, from Anglo-Norman professioun, from Old French profession. From Middle English professioun, from Anglo-Norman professioun, Old French profession (“declaration of faith, religious vows, occupation”), from Latin professiō (“avowal, public declaration”), from the participle stem of profitērī (“to profess”). by surface analysis, profess + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA