professed

adj

1. Openly declared or acknowledged.

   “His professed religion was Catholicism.”

2. Professing to be qualified.

   “She is a professed expert in mechanics.”

   “[…] flowers, which, if not identical with our violets, sufficiently correspond to them for the purposes of readers who are not professed botanists.”

3. Admitted to a religious order.

   “The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so strict that it horrifies; novices hold back, and the order is not recruited. In 1845 a few lay sisters were still found here and there, but no professed nuns.”

verb

1. (form-of, participle, past)simple past and past participle of profess