testemunha

Forms

testemunha f (plural testemunhas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote testemoya, testimoya, testimõya and testimõa in the 13th century, and testemoiha and testemuha in the 14th;^[2][3] testemunhas is recorded in 1365.^[2][3] In 1734 Feijó granted that testemunha was the usual spelling but preferred testimunha.^[4]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Portuguese testemunhar (“to testify”), as Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes and the DLP all describe it.^[2][3][5][6]

Houaiss and Cunha take the verb from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin *testimōniō (“to bear witness”), while Wiktionary forms it in Portuguese from testemunho (“testimony”) and the verb ending -ar.^[7][3][1] That noun continues Latin testimōnium (“evidence in court, testimony”), formed from testis (“witness”) and the suffix -mōnium.^[3][8][1]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin word as Proto-Italic *tri-sto-, from a Proto-Indo-European compound meaning “third standing by”, and compares an Oscan word for “witnesses”.^[9] Wiktionary analyses it as the third party who stands beside the two parties to a dispute, built on Proto-Indo-European *tréyes (“three”) and *steh₂- (“to stand”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha's first senses are a person called to attend formal or solemn acts and a person called to state what they saw or heard, and he dates the forms testemoya and testimoya to the 13th century.^[3] Houaiss dates the noun to the 13th century from Cunha's slips of medieval Portuguese.^[2] In the CTA it first appears in the Horto do Esposo, in a witness copied between 1390 and 1437.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense has been central from the start: Vieira illustrates it with the list of witnesses that closes a deed in the Ordenações Afonsinas, “Testemunhas, que a esto presentes forom…”.^[11] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 already has testemunha de ouvida, a witness who knows only by hearsay, and Bluteau in 1712–1728 lists the kinds of witnesses the jurists distinguished, citing Ulpian's saying that one eyewitness is worth more than ten by hearsay.^[12][13]

From the person the word passed to things that prove a fact, and in the 19th century to technical objects left as evidence: Houaiss dates to 1899 the sense of a mound left in an excavation to measure how much earth was taken out, and Silva Bastos in 1912 gives the stones set beside a boundary mark and the trees beside a marker tree.^[2][14] In bookbinding a testemunha is a leaf left untrimmed to show the original size of the paper.^[2][15] In informal European Portuguese the plural also means “testicles”.^[2][16]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu as tistimunha.^[1]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, spelt testemoya and testimoya.^[3][2]
• 1365 – the spelling testemunhas.^[2]
• c. 1430 – testemunha in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists testemunha and testemunha de ouvida.^[12]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the kinds of witnesses of the law.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó recommends the spelling testimunha.^[4]
• 1899 – first date of the sense “mound left in an excavation”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A person called to give evidence in a trial or an investigation: A defesa chamou duas testemunhas.^[2][6][1]
2. A person who certifies that an act is true, or answers questions about facts they know.^[2][16]
3. A person present at certain acts to make them valid: a witness at a wedding, a christening or a duel.^[2][15]
4. Anyone who sees something happen; an eyewitness or spectator: Ninguém foi testemunha do acidente.^[2][6][1]
5. (figurative) A thing that proves the truth of a fact; proof.^[2][15]
6. (bookbinding) A leaf left untrimmed and folded in, to show the size of the paper.^[2][15]
7. A mound or marker of earth or stone left in an excavation to measure its depth or the amount removed.^[2][16]
8. (in the plural) The stones set beside a boundary mark, or the trees beside a tree that serves as a marker.^[2][17]
9. (Portugal, informal, in the plural) The testicles.^[2][16]

Related words

• testemunhar
• testemunho
• testamento
• Latin testis

Usage notes

The law distinguishes the testemunha de vista or testemunha ocular, who saw what happened, from the testemunha de ouvido or testemunha auricular, who only heard it told.^[15][18] Brazilian slang has testemunha de viveiro for a witness coached to give false evidence.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. testemunha
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. testemunho
4. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. testemunha
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. testemunha
6. ^ a b c Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. testemunha
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. testemunhar
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. testimōnium
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. testis
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. testemunha
11. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 715
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. testemunha
13. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. testemunha
14. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. testemunha
15. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. testemunha
16. ^ a b c d Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. testemunha
17. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8949
18. ^ Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. testemunha