purport

present singular third person purports · participle present purporting · participle past purported · past purported

1. transitiveTo convey, imply, or profess (often falsely or inaccurately).

   He purports himself to be an international man of affairs.

   1 more example

   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

2. To intend.

   He purported to become an international man of affairs.

   1 more example

   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

plural purports

1. Import, an intention or purpose.

   Lenin repeats this admonition several times, and its purport is clear.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 360

   3 more examples

   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

2. obsoleteA disguise; a covering.

   For she her sex under that strange purport / Did use to hide.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 52