Noun

(en noun)

*{{quote-book, year=1590, author=, title=Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I, chapter=, edition=1921 ed. citation

, passage=They bring them wines of Greece and Araby,[*] And daintie spices fetcht from furthest Ynd,[*] To kindle heat of corage privily: And in the wine a solemne oth they bynd 35 T' observe the sacred lawes of armes, that are assynd. }}

Noun

(en noun)

A solemn pledge or promise to a god, king, or another person, to attest to the truth of a statement or contract

* 1924 , Aristotle, Metaphysics , Translated by W. D. Ross. Nashotah, Wisconsin, USA: The Classical Library, 2001. Available at: . Book 1, Part 3.

for they made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation, and described the oath of the gods as being by water,

The affirmed statement or promise accepted as equivalent to an oath .

A light or insulting use of a solemn pledge or promise to a god, king or another person, to attest to the truth of a statement or contract the name of a deity in a profanity, as in swearing oaths .

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author= Sam Leith

, volume=189, issue=1, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Where the profound meets the profane , passage=Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths'. Consider for a moment the origins of almost any word we have for bad language – "profanity", "curses", "' oaths " and "swearing" itself.}}

A curse.

(legal) An affirmation of the truth of a statement.