witnesses
noun · verb
Form of witness , plural of witness.
Simple meaning
Someone called to give evidence in a court.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
witnuhsuhzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɪtnəsəz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
plural of witness
Someone called to give evidence in a court.
plural of witness
One who sees or has personal knowledge of something.
plural of witness
One who is called upon to witness an event or action, such as a wedding or the signing of a document.
plural of witness
A Jehovah's Witness.
verb
third-person singular of witness
To take as evidence.
third-person singular of witness
To see or gain knowledge of through experience.
third-person singular of witness
To furnish proof of, to show.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Someone called to give evidence in a court.
Used this way, witnesses is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.