Word: purports
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...also drunk), a discharged servant of Secretary Robeson, the burning and shining light of the Navy Department, that "he was a - (what you please), and did not understand his business"; which was true, but unpleasant. The other replied, in the chaste language of the forecastle, to the purport that then great director "lied under a mistake," and then punched...
...most striking feature of college-life is its dialect. One unskilled in the student's phraseology hears a conversation carried on in which occur words apparently so distorted that he is unable to intelligently understand its purport, and at first is inclined to call it mere jargon. There is in most cases, however, a remarkable aptness of these words to their end, though many are not long-lived, and usually not more than two or three colleges at once use the same word to express the same thing...