English Meaning & Definitions
People who see an event, typically a crime or accident, take place.
- “The police are appealing for witnesses to come forward with information.”
- “Several witnesses testified that they saw the suspect fleeing the scene.”
Third-person singular present tense of 'witness', meaning to see an event occur or to sign a document as evidence of its authenticity.
- “She witnesses the sunrise from her balcony every single morning.”
- “The notary witnesses the signing of the legal contract to ensure it is valid.”
English Synonyms & Near Equivalents
English Antonyms & Opposites
Comprehensive Thesaurus Breakdown
Compare formal, informal, literary synonyms and register nuances for “witnesses”.
Derived from the Old English 'witnes', meaning 'knowledge, wisdom, or testimony', which stems from the Proto-Germanic '*witnassijō'. It is rooted in the same Proto-Indo-European base '*weid-' (to see), which is also the ancestor of the word 'wit' and 'vision'.
Think of a 'wit' (someone smart) who 'sees' (ness) the truth: a witness is someone who uses their wit to see what happened.
Frequently Asked Questions About “witnesses”
1. What is the meaning of “witnesses” in English?
In English, witnesses (noun) is defined as: “People who see an event, typically a crime or accident, take place.”.
2. How do you use “witnesses” in a sentence?
“The police are appealing for witnesses to come forward with information.”
3. What are English synonyms of “witnesses”?
4. What is the etymology and word origin of “witnesses”?
Derived from the Old English 'witnes', meaning 'knowledge, wisdom, or testimony', which stems from the Proto-Germanic '*witnassijō'. It is rooted in the same Proto-Indo-European base '*weid-' (to see), which is also the ancestor of the word 'wit' and 'vision'.
🇬🇧More English Words to English
View all English words →A measurement of time indicating an instantaneous occurrence or a state where no time has elapsed.
The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.
A specific duration of time equal to one hour and forty-six minutes and twelve seconds.
The cardinal number equal to one thousand million (1,000,000,000), expressed in scientific notation as 10^9.