testimony

 testimony on Wikipedia

• testimonie (obsolete)

Inherited from Middle English testimonie, from Old French testimonie, from Latin testimōnium (“testimony”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛstɪməni/

• Audio (US):

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testimony (countable and uncountable, plural testimonies)

1. (law) Statements made by a witness in court.

   Synonym: deposition

   • 2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian‎:

     The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991.

2. An account of first-hand experience.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. , London: ">…] , and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     for the testimony of truth, hast borne / Universal reproach.

3. (religion) In a church service (or religious service), a personal account, such as one's conversion, testimony of faith, or life testimony.
4. Witness; evidence; proof of some fact.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Mark 6:11:

     And whoſoeuer ſhall not receiue you, noꝛ heare you, when yee depart thence, *ſhake off the duſt vnder your feet, foꝛ a teſtimonie against them: Uerely I ſay vnto you, it ſhalbe moꝛe tolerable for Sodom and Gomoꝛrha in the day of iudgement, then foꝛ that citie.

   • 2021 July 28, Fausto Cercignani, “On the alleged existence of a vowel /yː/ in early Modern English”, in English Language and Linguistics, volume 26, number 2, Cambridge University Press, →DOI, page 4:

     Of course, the testimony of the early writers on orthography and pronunciation on the question under discussion is not always easy to interpret, especially when they offer comparisons with foreign sounds or when they give descriptions derived from other sources or from classical models.

• compel testimony

• test
• testify
• testimonial
• testiphony

• “testimony”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “testimony”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.