Witness

How to spell witness

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce witness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does witness mean?

1. nounA person who has seen an event take place or who gives sworn evidence about it.
2. verbTo see an event happen, especially something significant.

Witness in a sentence

• noun

  The police asked every witness to give a written statement.

• verb

  Thousands gathered to witness the launch of the spacecraft.

• noun

  A key witness failed to appear at the trial.

• verb

  Few people ever witness such a complete solar eclipse.

Where does witness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is genuinely native English, descending from the Old English witnes, which originally meant 'knowledge', 'understanding', or 'testimony'. It was built from the root wit, meaning 'knowledge' or 'the faculty of knowing', joined to the suffix -nes that turns a quality into a noun (the same -ness still seen in 'kindness' and 'darkness'). The underlying verb was witan, 'to know', a very old Germanic word that also gave us the modern noun 'wit' for sharp intelligence. Over the medieval period the meaning narrowed from abstract 'knowledge' toward the person who can give knowledge of an event, that is, one who testifies, and then toward the act of seeing something happen. The spelling trap lies entirely in the quiet middle and end: a single t, then -ness with a double s that the unstressed final syllable does nothing to advertise.

How the word is built

• wit (knowledge, from witan: to know)
• -ness (state or condition noun suffix)