Where does “allege” come from?
Allege comes from Old French alegier, from Latin allego (to assign or attribute), formed from the prefix ad- and the root legʰ- meaning to gather or collect.
allege (English): To state under oath, to plead; To cite or quote...
Definitions
- To state under oath, to plead; To cite or quote...
Ancestry of “allege”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | aleggen | — |
| 2 | Anglo-Norman | aleger | — |
| 3 | Old French | esligier | to acquit |
| 4 | Medieval Latin | exlitigare | to clear at law |
| 5 | Latin | ex | A name of the letter "X"; out of, from |
| 6 | Latin | commūnicō | to impart, share |
| 7 | Latin | commūnis | common, commonplace, ordinary, general, universal, shared, shared alike, of both sides, belonging to two or more together |
| 8 | Old Latin | com(m)oinis | — |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | kommoinis | common |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱom-moy-ni- | held in common |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱóm | beside, near, by, with |
| 12 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱe | Deictic particle, here; Post-positional... |
| 13 | Middle English | kyt | — |
| 14 | German | kitt | putty certain kinds of cement used for fixing e.g. window panes |
| 15 | Old High German | kuti | — |
| 16 | Proto-West Germanic | kwidu | gum, resin |
| 17 | Proto-Germanic | kweduz | resin |