witnesses

Noun

witness (countable and uncountable, plural witnesses)

1. (uncountable) Attestation of a fact or event; testimony.
   • She can bear witness, since she was there at the time.
2. (countable) One who sees or has personal knowledge of something.
   • As a witness to the event, I can confirm that he really said that.
3. (countable) Someone called to give evidence in a court.
   • The witness for the prosecution did not seem very credible.
4. (countable) One who is called upon to witness an event or action, such as a wedding or the signing of a document.
   • The bridesmaid and best man at a wedding typically serve as the witnesses.
5. (countable) Something that serves as evidence; a sign or token.
   • Laban said to Jacob, […] This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 31:51-52
6. A particular version of a text (seen as providing testimony of archetype or other earlier version)
   • Yet there are extremely few, if any, cases of preserved autographs, and textual witnesses (manuscripts) rather distant in time from the creation of the texts are the norm.2020, Alessandro Bausi, “7.5 Philological practices: Ethiopic”, in Philipp Roelli, editor, Handbook of Stemmatology: History, Methodology, Digital Approaches, De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC...

See all 13 meanings of witness