Affidavit

How to spell affidavit

9 letters · 4 syllables

The most common mistake is affadavit. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

affadavit affidavit

What people typed instead

• affadavit5 people

How to pronounce affidavit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affidavit mean?

1. nounA written statement of fact that the maker swears or affirms to be true, used as evidence in legal proceedings.

Affidavit in a sentence

• The witness signed an affidavit describing what she had seen.

• The lawyer asked each tenant to submit an affidavit confirming the rent paid.

Where does affidavit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Affidavit is borrowed directly from Medieval Latin, where it was a complete verb form rather than a noun. It is the third person singular perfect of affidare, meaning literally 'he has pledged his faith' or 'he has stated on oath'. That verb was built from ad-, meaning 'to', and a stem derived from fides, the Latin word for 'faith' or 'trust', so the deep idea is that of giving your word as a binding pledge. The same fides root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'fidelity', 'confide', and 'bona fide'. English lawyers adopted the word in the sixteenth century, keeping the original Latin verb ending intact, which is why it ends in the unusual -avit rather than a normal English noun ending. Remembering that the middle is fid (faith) and that ad- doubles to af- before the f helps explain the double f and the single d that follow.

How the word is built

• af- (from ad-: to)
• fid (faith, trust)
• -avit (Latin verb ending: he has)