depone

verb

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *de Proto-Indo-European *-h₁ Proto-Indo-European *déh₁ Proto-Italic *dē Latin dē Latin dē- Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Indo-European *h₂pó Proto-Indo-European *teḱ-der. Proto-Indo-European *tḱey-der. Proto-Italic *sinō Proto-Italic *pozinō Old Latin *poznō Latin pōnō Latin dēpōnō English depone From Latin dēpōnō (“lay down, deposit, entrust”).

1. To testify, especially in the form of a deposition.

   “These two females did afterwards depone that Mr. Willet in his consternation uttered but one word”

   “The said William Aitken, being of new solemnly sworn, &c., depones he is a Burgess of Hawick, and had the property of a house which he now liferents, the fee being disponed to his son-in-law, Bailie Robert Scot, for the use of his son William, his daughter, Bailie Scot's wife, having paid the price of the house; depones sixty years ago Gilbert Elliot was tenant in Nether Southfield, who broke Hawick Common by plowing a part of it, which the Deponent saw at the Common-Riding when the Magistrates and other persons at the Common-Riding potched the ground he had plowed, and was then sown that he might not reap the crop of this.”

2. To take the deposition of; to depose.
3. To lay, as a stake; to wager.
4. To lay down; to place

   “c. 1829?, Robert Southey, Inscription at Fort Augustus the obedient element / Lifts or depones its burthen”