[f. EAR sb.1] A person who testifies, or is able to testify, to something on the evidence of his own hearing.

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1594.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. 257. All which are present being made eare-witnesses.

2

a. 1610.  Healey, Epictetus’ Man. (1636), lxix. 89. Let not therefore the vulgar bee eare-vvitnesses of thy words, but eye-witnesses of thy workes.

3

1734.  trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. I. § 1. 181. Strabo himself was an ear-witness of this.

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1850.  Grote, Greece, II. lxiv. VIII. 269. The last words of these drowning men reported by an ear-witness.

5

1870.  Bowen, Logic, xiii. 433. The Testimony of eye- and ear-witnesses.

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