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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
perjure
verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And Mr Mitchum wouldn't perjure himself.
▪ It was true that I would never perjure myself.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Perjure

Perjure \Per"jure\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Perjured; p. pr. & vb. n. Perjuring.] [F. parjurer, L. perjurare, perjerare; per through, over + jurare to swear. See Jury.]

  1. To cause to violate an oath or a vow; to cause to make oath knowingly to what is untrue; to make guilty of perjury; to forswear; to corrupt; -- often used reflexively; as, he perjured himself.

    Want will perjure The ne'er-touched vestal.
    --Shak.

  2. To make a false oath to; to deceive by oaths and protestations. [Obs.]

    And with a virgin innocence did pray For me, that perjured her.
    --J. Fletcher.

    Syn: To Perjure, Forswear.

    Usage: These words have been used interchangeably; but there is a tendency to restrict perjure to that species of forswearing which constitutes the crime of perjury at law, namely, the willful violation of an oath administered by a magistrate or according to law.

Perjure

Perjure \Per"jure\, n. [L. perjurus: cf. OF. parjur, F. parjure.] A perjured person. [Obs.]
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
perjure

mid-15c. "swear falsely" (implied in perjured; late 13c. in Anglo-French), from Old French parjurer "to break one's word, renege on a promise" (11c.), from Latin periurare "to swear falsely, break one's oath" (see perjury). Reflexive sense is from 18c.

Wiktionary
perjure

n. (context obsolete English) A perjured person. vb. 1 (context reflexive English) To knowingly and willfully make a false statement of witness while in court. 2 (context transitive English) To cause to violate an oath or a vow; to cause to make oath knowingly to what is untrue; to make guilty of perjury; to forswear; to corrupt. 3 (context transitive English) To make a false oath to; to deceive by oaths and protestations.

WordNet
perjure

v. knowingly tell an untruth in a legal court and render oneself guilty of perjury

Usage examples of "perjure".

Madagascar is the affidavit of Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland, at Portsmouth, March 31, 1705, and these mariners may have perjured themselves to save the lives of English seamen condemned by the Scots.

You can force me to leave my vows unfulfilled-not to become the wife of the man I love--but you cannot force me to perjure myself.

He would perjure himself to the grave rather than have anyone believe ill of you.

Also, Nash, and two like-minded friends, hearing Elizabeth perjure herself, as they thought, at the trial of Mrs.

He handled the traitor contemptuously as a perjured, suborned witness, a false servant, a man who, as he proceeded to show, was a scoundrel steeped in crime, whose word was utterly worthless, and who, no doubt, had been bought to bring these charges against his sometime master.

And I know that it is not the heart of a perjured liar such as penned those lines.

I intended to make quite sure of ridding my country of that perjured tyrant.

I pay for having rid Nature of a monster and my country of a false, perjured tyrant, and I pay it gladly.

As for those who spoke up for Lord Hallmere, well, they perjured themselves as surely as I am sitting here, but they know him and trust his word and had clearly decided that there are several kinds of truth.

Goddard to be a liar who has perjured himself to try to get you hanged.

Duke prove that he and Croucher not only perjured themselves, but actually conspired together to bring false charges against me for which the only penalty was death.

These are the people who angrily defended a president who perjured himself, hid evidence, suborned perjury, was held in contempt by a federal court, was disbarred by the Supreme Court, and lied to his party, his staff, his wife, and the nation.

They must have come to the wrong address or they must have got the warrant on perjured evidence.

The bad news for the TV licensing authority was that eight more people had made complaints to the police about invasions of their homes based on either perjured evidence or plain lies.

If Robertson perjured himself on September 23, he withdrew his evidence, or rather, he omitted it, at the trial in November.