Compurgator

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who appears in a court of law to vouch for the honesty or credibility of an accused party by swearing an oath in support of them
2. One who takes an oath alongside an accused person to affirm that the accused's sworn statement is truthful, lending it weight through character testimony
3. A supporting oath-taker in old legal procedure who swears to the integrity of another party's claim, rather than giving direct evidence of the facts

Etymology: A compurgator was a witness in medieval law whose job was not to testify to what had happened, but to swear that the accused person was telling the truth. The Latin root "compurgare" means "to purify" or "to clear completely," with "com-" meaning "together" and "purgare" meaning "to cleanse," so the word describes people clearing an accused person's name together. Their oath was a kind of collective vouching for character rather than a claim about the facts of the case. The word reached English through Medieval Latin "compurgator" and the Middle French "compurgateur," both of which carried the same legal sense. The root "purgare" is also the source of English "purge" and "purgatory," so a compurgator was, in a sense, someone who helped cleanse a person of an accusation.

Synonyms: oath-helper