ear-witnessn.

1539 R. Taverner tr. Erasmus Prouerbes sig. F.iii^v One eye wytnesse, is of more value, then tenne eare wytnesses [L. auriti decem].

1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. xxxvi. 73 All which are present being made eare-witnesses.

1610 J. Healey tr. Epictetus Manuall lxix. 89 Let not..the vulgar bee eare-witnesse of thy words, but eye-witnesse of thy workes [Gk. καὶ σὺ τοίνυν μὴ τὰ θεωρήματα τοῖς ἰδιώταις έπιδείκνυε, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν περθέντων τὰ ἔργα].

?a1625 Lawes of Candy ii. i, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Ggg4^v/2 I was an eare-witnesse When this young man spoke lesser then he acted, And had the souldiers voice to helpe him out.

1724 J. Wesley Let. 18 Dec. (1931) I. 14 I design to go thither the first opportunity, and see if it be true; which I should hardly believe till I am an eye- or ear-witness of it.

1734 tr. C. Rollin Anc. Hist. I. 3 Strabo himself was an ear-witness of this.

1819 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1959) IV. 924 I had..five to seven hundred ear-witnesses that the passages had been given by me at the Royal Institution two years before Schlegel commenced his lectures.

1850 G. Grote Hist. Greece VIII. ii. lxiv. 269 The last words of these drowning men reported by an ear-witness.

1870 F. C. Bowen Logic xiii. 433 The Testimony of eye- and ear-witnesses.

1901 E. Nesbit in Illustr. London News 20 Apr. 565/1 Oswald was not an eye- or ear-witness of what happened.

1958 R. T. Clark tr. G. Ritter German Resistance x. 284 According to the only report from an ear-witness, what happened was that..Stauffenberg went out of the room to telephone Berlin.

2013 Sun Herald (Sydney) (Nexis) 24 Feb. 79 The ear-witnesses must have been wrong, as they seemed to have heard more shots than were fired.