Obs. Pl. testes. The Latin word for ‘witness’: from its legal use (cf. TESTE2), occasional in English context.

1

  In quot. a. 1483 in Latin construction = cum testibus ‘with the witnesses.’

2

a. 1483.  in Househ. Ord. (1790), 67. The Soveraynes here may send it with the testibus under theyre seales into the Chauncerie.

3

1525.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. cci. [cxcvii.] 616. The charter … named in the ende many wytnesses of prelates and great lordes of Englande, who were for the more suretie testes of that dede.

4

1563–87.  Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 532/2. As the saide Edward Hall, your great maister and testis, was about the compiling of his storie.

5

1611.  [see TESTIFIER].

6