Purport Meaning
/pəˈpɔːt/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo convey, imply, or profess (often falsely or inaccurately).
verbTo intend.
Sentence Examples
You purport to know what you're talking about; why don't you know about this?
The text did not purport to be comprehensive.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The fake document may ____ to be from the president, but experts can expose it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The document was said to ____ to be an original letter written by the founding president.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English purporten, from Anglo-Norman purporter and Old French porporter (“convey, contain, carry”), from pur-, from Latin pro (“forth”) + Old French porter (“carry”), from Latin portō (“carry”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The intermediate station seen here, Llanbister Road, is 5 hilly miles by road from the town it purports to serve."
— 1962 August, “More W.R. services in jeopardy”, in Modern Railways, page 82, photo caption:
"In all cases, however, although micronations may purport to assert sovereignty in any number of ways, they remain conceptually distinct from recognised sovereign states."
— 2022, Harry Hobbs, George Williams, “Prince Leonard Prepares for War” (chapter 1), in Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, →DOI, page 18:
"My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question."
— 1748, [David Hume], Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, part 2:
"Sorrowful, phantasmal as this same Double Aristocracy of Teachers and Governors now looks, it is worth all men’s while to know that the purport of it is, and remains, noble and most real."
— 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “I, Aristocracies”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book IV (Horoscope):
"A child’s brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult’s act, and figuring out its purport."
— 1939, Ernest Vincent Wright, Gadsby:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The fake document may ____ to be from the president, but experts can expose it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The document was said to ____ to be an original letter written by the founding president.