Definition of "attestation" noun countable and uncountable , plural attestations
(linguistics, of a language, word, word form, or word meaning) An appearance in print or otherwise recorded on a permanent medium . quotations examples
Quotations Furthermore , the first attestations given in the OED are not always the earliest attestations in print ; since the first edition was finished in 1928, many earlier and later examples have been identified , and these will be incorporated into the third edition , currently underway (see Durkin 2002 for a discussion of how much this is likely to change the dates of attestation in the OED as a whole ).
2010, Kathryn Allan, “Tracing metonymic polysemy through time: MATERIAL FOR OBJECT mappings in the OED”, in Margaret E. Winters, Heli Tissari, Kathryn Allan, editors, Historical Cognitive Linguistics, page 176