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taking the Fifth
(redirected from fifth)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.07 sec.

taking the Fifth n. the refusal to testify on the ground that the testimony might tend to incriminate the witness in a crime, based on the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which provides that "No person....shall be compelled to be a witness against himself," applied to state courts by the 14th Amendment. The term became famous during televised Senate committee hearings on organized crime in 1951, when a series of crime bosses "took the Fifth." (See: self-incrimination)


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