witnessing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of bearing witness: giving testimony or formally affirming something one has seen or knows.

   The witnessing of the will required two impartial adults to sign alongside her.

   His public witnessing about the fraud reshaped how the jury viewed the company.

   Similartestimony, attestation

   Note

   A noun that can be counted, unlike the gerund it grows from. One speaks of false witnessings in the plural, treating each act of testimony as a separate thing. The phrase echoes false witness, and the noun suits contexts where every individual act of attesting matters: each signature beside a will, each public statement against a fraud.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of witness.

   Thousands are witnessing the total eclipse from the hilltop this afternoon.

   Crowds were witnessing the parade as it wound through downtown.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, from plainly seeing an eclipse to the formal witnessing of a deed, where one watches it signed and then adds one's own signature to vouch for it. It can also stand without an object for presenting personal religious testimony, as in they spent the weekend witnessing. Used as a gerund, it shades into the noun of testimony.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2