allegation

noun

al·le·ga·tion | \ ˌa-li-ˈgā-shən

Definition of allegation

1 : the act of alleging something

2 : a positive assertion especially of misconduct Some former colleagues have made serious allegations against him. specifically : a statement by a party to a legal action of what the party undertakes to prove

3 : an assertion unsupported and by implication regarded as unsupportable

Examples of allegation in a Sentence

The police are investigating allegations that the mayor has accepted bribes. There have been allegations of fraud in the city government. You're making a serious allegation. Do you have any proof?

Recent Examples on the Web

The email, which The Wall Street Journal has seen, didn’t include details about the allegation. — Kate King, WSJ, "Lawmakers Grill Murphy Officials Over Handling of Sexual-Assault Claim," 8 Jan. 2019 Back in February, Seacrest declared that the allegations weren't true. — Kayla Keegan, Good Housekeeping, "Ryan Seacrest Faces Backlash for Wearing 'Time's Up' Bracelet on Golden Globes Red Carpet," 7 Jan. 2019 Jake's subscriber count plummeted by over 60,000 followers while Banks' rose by 200,000 in the wake of Jake's allegations. — Tamara Fuentes, Seventeen, "A Complete Timeline of Jake Paul's Biggest Controversies," 26 Sep. 2018 Snap faces two class-action lawsuits from shareholders based in part on Mr. Pompliano’s allegations. — Maureen Farrell, WSJ, "Evan Spiegel’s Imperious Style Made Snapchat a Success—Until Users Fled," 23 Dec. 2018 CareCentrix declined to comment on Neufeld’s allegations. — Marshall Allen, Ars Technica, "You snooze, you lose: Insurers make the old adage literally true," 21 Nov. 2018 Once in the lead to cinch the Democratic nomination, Hart was derailed after allegations of an affair with actress Donna Rice surfaced in The Miami Herald. — Chloe Foussianes, Town & Country, "The True Story of Gary Hart's Presidential Campaign Scandal in The Front Runner," 8 Nov. 2018 For the same Democrats who had pulled the stunt with Ford’s allegation, this immediately sounded like good news. — Chris Stirewalt, Fox News, "Flake & Co. try to tame partisan wildfire," 28 Sep. 2018 State governments spent years pressuring Amazon to collect sales tax, and once the task force started work, the debate shifted toward postal service privatization rather than, say, Trump’s allegations that The Washington Post is an Amazon catspaw. — Adi Robertson, The Verge, "Trump keeps threatening tech companies, but he’s terrible at following through," 29 Aug. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'allegation.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.