alleging

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of allege.

   The report alleging misconduct prompted an internal investigation.

   She filed a complaint alleging discrimination by her former employer.

   Note

   A form that nearly always reaches for an object: reports and complaints are alleging something, whether misconduct, fraud or discrimination, because the verb is transitive in its claiming and adducing uses. It most often trails a noun as a shortened clause (a lawsuit alleging negligence). Older uses of allege, pleading under oath or citing an author, have fallen away, and the same spelling also serves the noun for a claim.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   An assertion that someone has done something wrong, put forward without supporting proof.

   The alleging of fraud against the bank led to a long investigation.

   Her constant alleging of favoritism strained the whole committee.

   Similaraccusation

   Note

   Here the -ing form has become a true countable noun, with a plural: allegings. William Thorpe's The Examination of William Thorpe (c. 1400) has an archbishop waving away "all these allegings that thou bringest forth" as proud presumptuousness. Where a gerund names the act of claiming, this noun names the claims themselves, so they can be gathered up, counted and dismissed together.

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