Suborn is used in a legal term that many find confusing. We will examine the definition of the word suborn, where it came from and some examples of its use in sentences.
Suborn means to induce someone to commit a crime or an unlawful act. Often, this involves bribery, but the method of subornation may vary. The word suborn is often used in the term suborn perjury. This is a legal term that means to induce a witness to lie under oath. It is not suborning perjury to attempt to sway a witness’ testimony if the attempt is to elicit the truth. Suborning perjury only involves trying to sway a witness to tell a lie under oath. Suborn is a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object. Related words are suborns, suborned, suborning, subornation, suborner, subornative. The word suborn is derived from the Latin word subornare, meaning to induce or incite, secretly.
Examples
A jury in Lowell Superior Court determined Andy Montanez was not guilty of armed and masked robbery, intimidation of a witness, and two counts of attempting to suborn perjury, according to court records. (The Lowell Sun)
He opined that the recent cracks in the judiciary with regard to the collegium and conventions governing the way cases are to be assigned among judges have provided a dangerous opportunity to political rulers to suborn the institution. (The Deccan Chronicle)
FBI agent Brock W. Domin said that one of the public relations firm’s executives identified as Person D1 told the government he “understood Manafort’s outreach to be an effort to ‘suborn perjury’ ” by encouraging others to lie to federal investigators by concealing the firm’s work in the United States. (The Washington Post)