Testifyin

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Giving sworn evidence as a witness in a court or formal inquiry ; openly sharing one's personal faith or life experience, often before a congregation
2. Presenting a statement of truth as a witness in legal proceedings ; publicly describing how one's religious belief or personal experience has shaped one's life
3. Bearing witness through spoken evidence in court ; speaking aloud in a religious gathering about one's own faith or transformative experience

Etymology: "Testifyin" is the informal, dropped-g spelling of "testifying," the present participle of "testify." It is a spelling of speech rather than a separate word, most often seen in dialogue, song lyrics and written reproductions of casual or African American English, where final "-ing" is often pronounced "-in'." "Testify" itself comes from Latin "testificari," formed from "testis" ("witness") and "facere" ("to make"), so the original sense was literally "to make a witness" or "to bear witness." It entered English in the late 1500s, and in its earliest uses it covered any solemn declaration of truth, not only evidence given in court. The legal sense of giving testimony under oath came to dominate, though the broader sense of testifying to a belief or experience survives in phrases like "testify to his kindness."