Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Testament

Tes′ta·ment (·ment), n. [F., fr. L. testamentum, fr. testari to be a witness, to make one's last will, akin to testis a witness. Cf. Intestate, Testify.] 1. (Law) A solemn, authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his will as to disposal of his estate and effects after his death.

☞ This is otherwise called a will, and sometimes a last will and testament. A testament, to be valid, must be made by a person of sound mind; and it must be executed and published in due form of law. A man, in certain cases, may make a valid will by word of mouth only. See Nuncupative will, under Nuncupative.

2. One of the two distinct revelations of God's purposes toward man; a covenant; also, one of the two general divisions of the canonical books of the sacred Scriptures, in which the covenants are respectively revealed; as, the Old Testament; the New Testament; — often limited, in colloquial language, to the latter.

He is the mediator of the new testament . . . for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament. Heb. ix. 15.

Holographic testament, a testament written wholly by the testator himself. Bouvier.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.