assertion

Noun

assertion (countable and uncountable, plural assertions)

1. The act of asserting; positive declaration or averment.
   • "Do tell us the real name of your country, and then when you are gone we shall know how to talk about you." To this luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose nothing but assertion, and the whole party remained firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other deceiving them.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 247
2. Something which is asserted; a declaration; a statement asserted.
   • You're a man of strong assertions!
   • Suppose you are given the semifactual assertion, "even if Nora had liked mathematics then she would have became^([sic]) a scientist" and then you find out that Nora did in fact become a scientist.2007 January 26, Ruth M. J. Byrne, The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 140

   Synonyms:

   contention

3. A statement or declaration which lacks support or evidence.
   • That's just a bare assertion.
   • Drivers' union ASLEF bluntly rebuffed the claim of unofficial action, calling it a lie. And Avanti West Coast was unable to provide any proof for its assertion, when questioned by RAIL.2022 August 24, Philip Haigh, “Network News: Union slams Avanti West Coast: 'lie' as services slashed”, in RAIL, number 964, page 6
4. Maintenance; vindication.
   • the assertion of one's rights or prerogatives
5. A statement in a program asserting a condition expected to be true at a particular point, used in debugging.
   • The user should be absolutely confident that the error issued is a real design error. In other words, a user should be confident that his assertion code is correct and that the assertion failure is not a false condition.2006, Srikanth Vijayaraghavan, Meyyappan Ramanathan, A Practical Guide for SystemVerilog Assertions, page 284
6. The set of information that the statement preparer is providing in a financial statement audit.