3 uses
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Definition
to claim — (often said of something that is not easy to believe or is not true)
- Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta, in India.Chapters 55-57 -- Monstrous Pictures of Whales; Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales; Whales in Paint…. (5% in)
- But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, by those who know.Chapters 55-57 -- Monstrous Pictures of Whales; Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales; Whales in Paint…. (17% in)
- In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck."Chapters 55-57 -- Monstrous Pictures of Whales; Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales; Whales in Paint…. (21% in)
There are no more uses of "purport" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)