Professor, an officer in a university, college, or other seminary, whose duty it is to instruct students, or read lectures on particular branches of learning. In the early times of universities the degrees conferred on students were licenses to act as public teachers; and the terms Master, Doctor, and Professor were nearly identical in signification. As, however, the body of graduates ceased in the course of time to have any concern in public teaching, a separate class of recognised teachers sprang up, paid sometimes with salaries, in other instances by fees from their hearers. These were called professors; and in the German and Scottish universities they became the governing body, and sole recognised functionaries for the purpose of education. In the universities in which collegiate foundations prevailed, as Oxford and Cambridge, they became, on the other hand, only secondaries or auxiliaries, attendance on their lectures not being generally deemed indispensable, and the necessary business of instruction being carried on by the functionaries of the several colleges. See UNIVERSITY, and the articles on the several universities.
The word professor is occasionally used in a loose way to denote generally the teacher of any science or branch of learning, without any reference to a university. It has been assumed as a designation not only by instructors in music and dancing, but by conjurors, athletes, and the like.