requiring effort or concentration; complex and not easy to answer or solve; "raised serious objections to the proposal"; "the plan has a serious flaw"
of great consequence; "marriage is a serious matter"
concerned with work or important matters rather than play or trivialities; "a serious student of history"; "a serious attempt to learn to ski"; "gave me a serious look"; "a serious young man"; "are you serious or joking?"; "Don't be so serious!"
state insincerely; "He professed innocence but later admitted his guilt"; "She pretended not to have known the suicide bomber"; "She pretends to be an expert on wine"
confess one's faith in, or allegiance to; "The terrorists professed allegiance to the Muslim faith"; "he professes to be a Communist"
practice as a profession, teach, or claim to be knowledgeable about; "She professes organic chemistry"
take vows, as in religious order; "she professed herself as a nun"
receive into a religious order or congregation
state freely; "The teacher professed that he was not generous when it came to giving good grades"
cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations; "Mosquitoes buzzing in my ear really bothers me"; "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves"
a disagreement or argument about something important; "he had a dispute with his wife"; "there were irreconcilable differences"; "the familiar conflict between Republicans and Democrats"
one of the two main constituents of a sentence; the predicate contains the verb and its complements
(logic) what is predicated of the subject of a proposition; the second term in a proposition is predicated of the first term by means of the copula; "`Socrates is a man' predicates manhood of Socrates"
affirm or declare as an attribute or quality of; "The speech predicated the fitness of the candidate to be President"
make the (grammatical) predicate in a proposition; "The predicate `dog' is predicated of the subject `Fido' in the sentence `Fido is a dog'"
the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat; "cooking can be a great art"; "people are needed who have experience in cookery"; "he left the preparation of meals to his wife"