Hearsay is information heard from others and not checked. Mere hearsay, dismiss it as hearsay, the hearsay rule.
In court the hearsay rule generally bars a witness from repeating what somebody else said, because the person who said it cannot be cross-examined. The exceptions to that rule fill textbooks. In ordinary use, calling something hearsay dismisses it.
1nounhearsayInformation heard from others and not checked.
“Most of what we know about the scandal is hearsay from people who weren't there.”
hearsay is information.
From the phrase to hear say, recorded in Middle English as a single noun by the fifteenth century.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ew-
Middle English
hyere-zigginge
English, today
hearsay
Built from
From Middle English hyere-zigginge (1340), here sey (ca. 1438), from the phrase heren seien (“to hear [people] say”). Compare equally old Middle High German hœrsagen (14th c.), whence modern Hörensagen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA