eyewitness

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a person who personally sees an event and can describe or testify about it

   An eyewitness gave police a detailed description of the driver.

2. 2
   verb

   to be present at and personally see an event

   Several residents eyewitnessed the explosion from nearby balconies.

A compound of eye + witness. Eye emphasizes direct visual knowledge, distinguishing an eyewitness from someone reporting hearsay or secondhand evidence. The noun later also produced a less common verb meaning to see an event firsthand.

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