Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A written declaration made under oath before a notary public or other authorized officer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A written declaration upon oath; a statement of facts in writing signed by the affiant, and sworn to or confirmed by a declaration before a notary public, a magistrate, or other authorized officer.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) A sworn statement in writing; a declaration in writing, signed and made upon oath before an authorized magistrate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun law A signed document wherein an affiant makes a sworn statement.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun written declaration made under oath; a written statement sworn to be true before someone legally authorized to administer an oath

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin affīdāvit, from third person sing. perfect tense of affīdāre, to pledge; see affiance.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin affidavit ("he has sworn"), the third person singular perfect tense of affido ("swear"), from fīdō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰidʰ-, zero-grade of Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- (“to command, to persuade, to trust”). Cognate to fidelity and faith (same Latin root), but not to affirm (shared Latin ad- prefix, but different Latin and Proto-Indo-European roots).

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