Purport

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)t
• verb IPA: /pəˈpɔːt/
• verb IPA: /pɚˈpɔɹt/
• noun IPA: /ˈpɜːpɔːt/, /ˈpɜːpÉ™t/
• noun IPA: /ˈpÉšpɔɹt/

Origin

From Anglo-Norman, from purporter ("convey, contain, carry"), from Old French pur-, from Latin pro ("forth") + Old French porter ("carry"), from Latin portō ("carry").

Full definition of purport

Verb

1. To convey, imply, or profess outwardly, often falsely.He purports himself to be an international man of affairs.
2. (construed with to) To intend.He purported to become an international man of affairs.

Noun

1. import, intention or purpose
• 1748, David Hume, My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question.
• 1843, Thomas_Carlyle, , book 4, chapter I, AristocraciesSorrowful, 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.
• 1939, Ernest Vincent Wright, 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.
2. (obsolete) disguise; covering
• SpenserFor she her sex under that strange purport
  Did use to hide.

Anagrams

• prorupt