Adjective

(head)

Supposed, or assumed to be.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Philip E. Mirowski , title=Harms to Health from the Pursuit of Profits , volume=100, issue=1, page=87 , magazine= citation , passage=In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.}}

Normally assumed to be.

Said by some people to be real or true or to have happened, although this may not be so

Adjective

(en adjective)

Commonly believed or deemed to be the case; accepted by supposition rather than as a result of proof.

* 1879 , Maurice Mauris, "A Materialistic Artist," New York Times , 9 Nov., p. 10:

[T]he lady . . . insisted upon going herself, requesting me to mind for a second the baby. . . . lo! the baby awoke and stared at me with a pair of big frightened eyes, which the little thing in another moment rolled in all directions, as if in search of its putative mother.

* 1989 , , " US must support Thailand if Cambodia is to survive," Milwaukee Sentinel'' ''(Los Angeles Times Service) , 28 Oct. (retrieved 15 Sep. 2009):

Just as Prince Sihanouk is fronting for the Khmer Rouge today . . . so also was he their putative leader from 1970 to 1975.

* 2006 , Unmesh Kher, " No Neat Endings for the JonBenet Case," Time , 18 Aug.:

Karr's past does raise suspicions. When he was arrested in Bangkok, he was living in a dormitory-like guesthouse in a neighborhood frequented by sex tourists. . . . Of course, Karr's putative pedophilia would not make him guilty of murder.