Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To make (oneself) guilty of perjury.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To swear falsely; be false to oaths or vows; bear false witness.
  • To render guilty of the crime of testifying falsely under oath or solemn affirmation, especially in judicial or official proceedings, or of being false to one's oaths or vows; forswear: commonly used reflexively: as, the witness perjured himself.
  • To swear falsely to; deceive by false oaths or protestations.
  • Synonyms Perjure, Forswear. Perjure is now technical and particular; strictly, it is limited to taking a legal oath falsely; occasionally it is used for forswear. Forswear is general, but somewhat old-fashioned.
  • noun A perjured person.

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

  • noun obsolete A perjured person.
  • transitive verb To cause to violate an oath or a vow; to cause to make oath knowingly to what is untrue; to make guilty of perjury; to forswear; to corrupt; -- often used reflexively.
  • transitive verb obsolete To make a false oath to; to deceive by oaths and protestations.

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

  • verb reflexive To knowingly and willfully make a false statement of witness while in court.
  • noun obsolete A perjured person.

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

  • verb knowingly tell an untruth in a legal court and render oneself guilty of perjury

Etymologies

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

[Middle English perjuren, from Old French perjurer, from Latin periūrāre : per-, per- + iūrāre, to swear; see yewes- in Indo-European roots.]

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