The Collaborative International Dictionary
Purport \Pur"port\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Purported; p. pr. & vb. n. Purporting.] [OF. purporter, pourporter. See Purport, n.] To intend to show; to intend; to mean; to signify; to import; -- often with an object clause or infinitive.
They in most grave and solemn wise unfolded
Matter which little purported.
--Rowe.
Wiktionary
supposed, or assumed to be. v
(en-past of: purport)
WordNet
adj. commonly put forth or accepted as true on inconclusive grounds; "the foundling's putative father"; "the reputed (or purported) author of the book"; "the supposed date of birth" [syn: putative(a), purported(a), reputed(a), supposed(a)]
Usage examples of "purported".
It purported to be a petition from twenty-two slaves, and he would like to know whether it came within the rule of the House concerning petitions relating to slavery.
He had come too far to be stopped by yet another arcane relic from the distant past, no matter how powerful this wizard was purported to be.
The content of the communication is, despite its purported celestial origin, mundane.
Surely it is our duty to scrutinize the purported evidence at least as closely and sceptically as radio astronomers do who are searching for alien radio signals.
August 1995, television stations owned by Rupert Murdoch ran what was purported to be an autopsy of a dead alien, shot on 16-millimetre film.
In quantum mechanics we have a purported understanding of Nature on the basis of which, step by step and quantitatively, we make predictions about what will happen if a certain experiment, never before attempted, is carried out.
But if Teller is right, then it was unconscionable of him not to have disclosed the purported discovery to the affected parties - the citizens and leaders of his nation and the world.
It had thought of itself until recently as a prosperous timber community, had sawn down its adjoining forests with purposeful enthusiasm, but was at the time of the purported apparitions a place impoverished and psychologically defeated, a casualty, in its view of things, of urban liberals and their representatives in government, who wanted all the trees left standing.
In the considered view of our Church, he said, the character of the purported visionary is as critical as the character of the purported visions.
The above letter purported to come from a poor widow who, though supplied with State Bank paper, could not obtain a receipt for her tax bill.
But only last year I saw with astonishment what purported to be a letter of a very distinguished and influential clergyman of Virginia, copied, with apparent approbation, into a St.
It was purported to furnish its followers with physical strength, a feeling of audacity, and the prowess to perform extraordinary deeds.
Mescalito was purported to be a unique power, similar to an ally in the sense that it allowed one to transcend the boundaries of ordinary reality, but also quite different from an ally.
And as such it was purported to have a definite form that was usually not constant or predictable.
The progression towards a specific total result created the perception of a coherent set of scenes, which were purported to be the voice of the lizard narrating the events to be divined, and the sensation of a voice that actually described such scenes.