|
[14] Allege is related to law, legal, legislation, legation, and litigation. Its original source was Vulgar Latin *exlitigāre, which meant ‘clear of charges in a lawsuit’ (from ex- ‘out of’ and litigāre ‘litigate’). This developed successively into Old French esligier and Anglo- Norman alegier, from where it was borrowed into English; there, its original meaning was ‘make a declaration before a legal tribunal’. Early traces of the notion of making an assertion without proof can be detected within 50 years of the word’s introduction into English, but it took a couple of centuries to develop fully. The hard g of allegation suggests that though it is ultimately related to allege, it comes from a slightly different source: Latin allēgātiō, from allēgāre ‘adduce’, a compound verb formed from ad- ‘to’ and lēgāre ‘charge’ (source of English legate and legation).
|