witness
Definitions
General English
- noun a person who sees something happen or who is present when something happens
- noun a person who is present when someone signs a document
- verb to be present when something happens, and see it happening
Commerce
- verb to sign (a document) to show that you guarantee that the other signatures on it are genuine
Law
- noun somebody who sees something happen or who is present when something happens
- noun somebody who appears in court to give evidence
Origin & History of “witness”
Witness originally meant ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’; it was simply an abstract
noun formed
from wit.
this was extended via ‘knowledge gained by observation’ to ‘testimony’ in the Old
English period, and by the beginning of the
middle English period ‘person who gives testimony’ was
well established.
