alleges

Alleges is the third-person singular present tense of the verb allege. It means to assert something as true, typically without providing proof. The term is common in journalism, legal writing, and ordinary speech when someone makes a claim that has not yet been established as fact. For example, a spokesperson may allege misconduct by a rival company, or a report may allege violations of policy.

Related forms include alleged (adjective or past participle), allegedly (adverb), and allegation (a claim presented as true but not yet proven). Alleged is used to describe claims that have been put forward by someone else, while alleged can function as a modifier: “the alleged incident.” Allegation, used in plural allegations, refers to the collection of such claims or to individual claims themselves. In careful prose, the distinction between a claim and something proven is maintained by choosing these forms according to whether evidence is presented.

Etymology traces allege to Old French alleguer, from Latin allegare, meaning to bring forward as evidence or to cite. The usage has evolved to indicate that the assertion is disputed or unverified, and it often appears in statements that require attribution to a source. In legal and media contexts, writers frequently pair allegations with attributions (sources or entities) and, where appropriate, with qualifiers such as “according to” or “the spokesperson alleges,” to convey the status of the claim without endorsing it as fact.