Purport

 WORD OF THE DAY

purport / verb / per-PORT

Definition
1a: to have the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred)
1b: claim
2: intend, purpose

Examples
"One study at M.I.T. purported to show that the subway was a superspreader early in the pandemic, but its methodology was widely disputed."
— Christina Goldbaum, The New York Times, 2 Aug. 2020

"To support his applications, Hayford provided lenders with fraudulent payroll documentation purporting to establish payroll expenses that were, in fact, nonexistent."
— editorial, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
The verb purport may be more familiar nowadays, but purport exists as a noun that passed into English from Anglo-French in the 15th century as a synonym of gist.
Sir Walter Scott provides us with an example from his 19th-century novel Rob Roy: "I was a good deal mortified at the purport of this letter."
Anglo-French also has the verb purporter (meaning both "to carry" and "to mean"), which combines the prefix pur- ("thoroughly") and the verb porter ("to carry").
In its original English use, the verb purport meant "to signify"; the "to profess or claim" sense familiar to modern English speakers didn't appear until the 17th century.