Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PRO-FES'SION, n. [Fr. from L. professio.]

1. Open declaration; public avowal or acknowledgment of one's sentiments or belief; as, professions of friendship or sincerity; a profession of faith or religion. The professions of princes, when a crown is the bait, are a slender security. – Lesley. The Indians quickly perceive the coincidence or the contradiction between professions and conduct, and their confidence or distrust follows of course. – J. Morse.
2. The business which one professes to understand and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as, the learned professions. We speak of the professions of a clergyman, of a lawyer, and of a physician or surgeon; the profession of lecturer on chimistry or mineralogy. But the word is not applied to an occupation merely mechanical.
3. The collective body of persons engaged in a calling. We speak of practices honorable or disgraceful to a profession.
4. Among the Romanists, the entering into a religions order, by which a person offers himself to God by a vow of inviolable obedience, chastity and poverty. – Encyc.