Swearing On One’s Testicle

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

The word “testify” in a normal sense was taken from the Latin word testis, which is normally translated “witness”. But the presumed story of the origination of this word was rather unusual. It was said that in Roman courts, men had to swear on their testicles; or according to some sources, swear by putting their hands on testicles to confirm the truth of the statement. Linguists are not convinced about this story because when they broke the word to its core, they noticed that etymologically, it means “third (person) standing by”: the te– part comes from an older tri–, a combining form of the word for “three,” and –stis is a noun derived from the Indo-European root stā- meaning “stand.”

According to some experts, the words testify, testimony and testicle all come from the Latin testis and ancient Israelites and Roman men consider testicles as a sacred body part. It is stated that under Roman law only virile men were allowed to give witnesses, or to testify in legal matters which makes many historians conclude that the Roman law was male-dominated, where women could not stand as witnesses. The perception regarding this word was spiced up even more when a feminist magazine published a statement which stated,

“I protest the use of the word ‘testimony’ when referring to a woman’s statements, because its root is ‘testes’ which has nothing to do with being a female. Why not use ‘ovarimony’?”

[Source: WORLDWIDEWORDS]