Juror

How to spell juror

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce juror

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does juror mean?

1. nounA member of a jury, sworn to weigh the evidence in a trial and help reach a verdict.

Juror in a sentence

• Each juror listened carefully to the closing arguments before deliberation.

• The judge dismissed one juror who had a personal connection to the defendant.

Where does juror come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin verb jurare, meaning 'to swear an oath', which itself was built on jus or juris, meaning 'law' or 'right'. A juror was originally simply 'one who swears', because the role hinges on taking a sworn oath to judge a case honestly. English picked it up in the 1300s through Anglo-Norman jureour and Old French jureor, during the period when the legal system in England was conducted largely in French. The same jus/juris root still powers a whole family of legal words, including 'jury', 'justice', 'perjury', and 'jurisdiction'. The spelling trap is the ending: it is the agent suffix -or, not the more common -er, which trips up writers who expect 'jurer'.

How the word is built

• jur- (from Latin jurare: to swear)
• -or (agent suffix: one who does)