alleged

(ə-lĕjdˈ, ə-lĕjˈĭd)

adjective

Related Forms:

• al·legˈed·ly (ə-lĕjˈĭd-lē) adverb

Usage Note: An alleged burglar is someone who has been accused of being a burglar but against whom no charges have been proved. An alleged incident is an event that is said to have taken place but has not yet been verified. In their zeal to protect the rights of the accused, newspapers and law enforcement officials sometimes misuse alleged. Someone arrested for murder may be only an alleged murderer, for example, but is a real, not an alleged, suspect in that his or her status as a suspect is not in doubt. Similarly, if the money from a safe is known to have been stolen and not merely mislaid, then we may safely speak of a theft without having to qualify our description with alleged.