bear witness

English edit

bear witness (third-person singular simple present bears witness, present participle bearing witness, simple past bore witness, past participle borne witness)

To deliver a testimony, especially as witness
He hesitated to bear witness against them in court for fear of reprisals by the felons' accomplices
To prove, demonstrate
The dubious state of the whole society bears witness of years of misrule
- 2017 July 7, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “The ambitious War For The Planet Of The Apes ends up surrendering to formula”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:
  In stretches, this new Apes is an audacious, idiosyncratic piece of blockbuster filmmaking: a mix of Pixar, revenge Westerns, and Apocalypse Now, told almost entirely from the point-of-view of a posse of gun-toting, super-evolved apes as they roam the snowy Sierra Nevada foothills of the post-apocalyptic future, accompanied by a mute human girl, and bear witness to the strange cruelty of man.
- 1960 December, “Talking of Trains: The riding of B.R. coaches”, in Trains Illustrated, page 705:
  Nor, having married coach and bogie design successfully, does it follow that good riding will ensue, whatever the track carrying it—as the performance of B.R. standard coaches on flat-bottom, concrete-sleepered track bears witness.

deliver testimony

prove, demonstrate