Alleged

How to spell alleged

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce alleged

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alleged mean?

1. adjectiveSaid or claimed to be the case but not yet proven.
2. verbPast tense of allege: claimed or asserted something, typically without firm proof.

Alleged in a sentence

• adjective

  The alleged fraud is still under investigation by the bank.

• verb

  The tenant alleged that the landlord had ignored repeated repair requests.

• adjective

  Reporters were careful to describe him only as the alleged offender.

• verb

  Investigators alleged a pattern of missing receipts in the accounts.

Where does alleged come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb allegare, formed from ad, meaning 'to' or 'toward', and legare, meaning 'to depute, to commission, or to send on a mission', which in legal use came to mean 'to cite or bring forward as evidence'. It travelled into English in the 1300s by way of Anglo-Norman and Old French verbs such as alleger, and there was some early blending with another Old French verb meaning 'to lighten or relieve', which clouds the precise path. The settled sense in English became 'to declare or assert, especially without yet offering proof', which is why courts and journalists lean on it so heavily. The adjective alleged, meaning 'asserted but not proven', grew directly out of that courtroom habit. The single L of the Latin ad assimilated to a double L before the L of legare, and that doubled consonant, together with the soft -ged ending, is exactly where modern writers stumble.

How the word is built

• al- (from ad-: to, toward)
• leg (from Latin legare: to depute, to dispatch, to cite)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)