Alligation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of formally charging someone with an offense, which includes making a claim without necessarily providing evidence alongside the act of asserting a statement made about a situation
2. The act of bringing forth an accusation or charge regarding someone's conduct, including an assertion that may lack supporting evidence accompanied by the claiming of a fact or issue needing inquiry
3. The act of stating a claim against someone, which involves both making an accusation and suggesting a need for investigation without necessarily proving the assertion

Etymology: The form "alligation" is a misspelling of "allegation," and the two have been confused for centuries. The real English word traces back to Latin "allegatio," a legal and rhetorical term, and its root sense is not accusation at all. The Latin "alligatio" meant a tying or binding together, built from "ligare," "to bind," with the prefix "ad-" attached. The English word that means a formal charge descends from the Latin "allegare," which carried the sense of citing or putting forward something in argument. Because the spelling "alligation" has no separate history of its own, its meaning follows the word it was mistaken for. Anyone who writes "alligation" in the sense of making a charge is simply writing a variant of "allegation." Its literal Latin ancestor, the idea of binding, survives only in the spelling's origin and in the older English sense of tying, which sits well apart from the modern legal and rhetorical use.

Synonyms: accusation, charge

Antonyms: defense, exoneration