purport

verb

1. To convey, imply, or profess (often falsely or inaccurately).

   “He purports himself to be an international man of affairs.”

   “The intermediate station seen here, Llanbister Road, is 5 hilly miles by road from the town it purports to serve.”

2. To intend.

   “He purported to become an international man of affairs.”

   “In all cases, however, although micronations may purport to assert sovereignty in any number of ways, they remain conceptually distinct from recognised sovereign states.”

noun

1. Import, intention or purpose.

   “My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question.”

   “Sorrowful, 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.”

   “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)A disguise; a covering.

   “For she her sex under that strange purport / Did use to hide.”