Allegation

How to spell allegation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce allegation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does allegation mean?

1. nounA statement asserting that someone has done something wrong, made without proof and yet to be verified.

Allegation in a sentence

• The newspaper printed a serious allegation against the company's director.

• Every allegation of fraud was investigated by the internal audit team.

Where does allegation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin allegationem, the noun of the verb allegare, which meant 'to send on a mission' or 'to dispatch with a message', built from ad- 'to' and legare 'to depute or send'. In Roman legal use the sense narrowed to mean putting forward a statement or producing something as evidence in a case, which is why the modern word still carries a courtroom flavour. English took it in through Old French and Latin in the late 1300s, settling into the meaning of a claim or assertion made without proof. A close relative from the very same legare root is 'delegate', someone sent in another's place, and 'legation', a diplomatic mission. The double 'l' is the classic spelling trap: it survives from the assimilation of the Latin prefix ad- to al- before a word beginning with l, so writers must remember two l's but only one g.

How the word is built

• al- (from ad-: to, toward)
• leg (from Latin legare: to depute, send on a mission, declare)
• -ation (noun suffix marking the act or result)