alleged

1. 1
   adjective

   Claimed to be the case but not yet established as fact.

   The alleged assault took place outside the nightclub, according to several witnesses.

   Journalists carefully described him as the alleged offender until the trial concluded.

   Similarsuspected, supposed

   Oppositeproven, confirmed

   Note

   The careful hedge of legal and news language, placed before the noun it qualifies: an alleged crime, alleged involvement, the alleged thief. It cannot be graded, since nothing is more alleged than something else. When it describes a person, it qualifies the label rather than the event. The alleged thief really was arrested; only the thieving still awaits proof.

2. 2
   adjective

   Claimed or assumed to exist or be true, though the claim is open to serious doubt.

   The diet's alleged benefits vanished under closer scientific scrutiny.

   Critics questioned the alleged superiority of the new method.

   Similarsupposed, purported, so-called, ostensible

   Oppositeproven, actual

   Note

   Here the word stops being neutral and becomes a raised eyebrow: the speaker doubts the claim itself, not just whether it has been proved. It often sits before a claimed virtue, as in alleged benefits or an alleged superiority. To tell it from the neutral legal hedge, ask whether the speaker would be surprised if the claim held up. If so, this is the doubtful sense, close to so-called.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of allege.

   Prosecutors alleged that the firm had hidden its losses for years.

   It was alleged that the contractor cut corners to save money.

   Note

   A regular -ed form that does double duty as simple past and as the participle of the impersonal passive: it was alleged that, he is alleged to have lied. Today the verb means asserting a claim without proof. Older English also used it for pleading under oath and for citing an author in support of an argument, and once even for lightening or diminishing something. Only the claiming sense survives in ordinary use.

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