The story
- Old English · inherited fromġewitnes
- Middle English · inherited fromwitnesse
- English todaywitness
From Middle English witnesse, from Old English ġewitnes, equivalent to wit + -ness. Cognate with Middle Dutch wetenisse (“witness, testimony”), Old High German gewiznessi (“testimony”), Icelandic vitni (“witness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.