People who saw an event happen with their own eyes and can testify about what they observed.
Compound word from 'eye' (Old English 'eage') and 'witness' (from Old English 'witnes,' meaning 'one who knows'). Combined, it literally means 'someone whose knowledge comes from direct sight.'
Police have learned that eyewitness testimony is surprisingly unreliable—people confidently remember details that never happened, proving that our eyes might be present but our brains are actively creating memories rather than recording them.
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