noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   One brought into court to swear to the truth and testify on oath on behalf of the accused, to clear them from suspicion of crime. historical

Etymology

From oath + helper, probably a calque of German Eidhelfer (also Eideshelfer), Dutch eedhelper, West Frisian eedhelper.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.