Definition
A Latin term meaning "we are ignorant" or "we do not know." In its legal sense, ignoramus was the word formerly written by a grand jury on the back of a bill of indictment when, after hearing the evidence presented by the prosecution, the jury determined the accusation was groundless or insufficiently supported to warrant sending the matter to trial. The endorsement did not necessarily mean the accused was innocent — only that the truth of the accusation had not been made to appear to the jury's satisfaction.
In modern grand jury practice, ignoramus is obsolete as a formal endorsement. Its function has been replaced by the phrases "not a true bill," "no bill," or "not found," though some jurisdictions historically used the term "ignored" as a transitional form.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A grand jury's ruling on an indictment when the evidence is determined to be insufficient to send the case to trial.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Both the grand jury endorsement described above, and separately, "a stupid, ignorant person; a vain pretender to knowledge; a dunce."
The gap between common and legal meaning here runs in an unusual direction. In ordinary modern English, "ignoramus" survives almost exclusively as an insult — a dunce or pretender to knowledge. The legal meaning is nearly forgotten in common usage, yet the insult itself derives directly from the legal term: critics of grand juries that returned ignoramus endorsements on weak prosecutions began applying the word satirically to the jurors themselves, and the pejorative meaning eventually displaced the procedural one in everyday speech. A researcher encountering the word in historical legal sources must resist the modern connotation entirely.
Common Confusion
Ignoramus is sometimes loosely equated with a general "dismissal" of charges, but the term is procedurally specific: it reflects a grand jury's refusal to find a true bill, not a judge's dismissal of an indictment already returned. These are distinct procedural moments. An ignoramus endorsement meant the case never resulted in a formal indictment at all. Conflating it with nolle prosequi — the prosecutor's decision to abandon a prosecution already commenced — is also a common error in reading historical materials.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with English common law sources, colonial American records, or early republic criminal procedure will encounter ignoramus frequently and must recognize it as a technical term of grand jury practice, not a general expression of ignorance. It appears on the physical back of indictment documents (hence "endorsed"), and its presence signals a failed prosecution at the presentment stage.
The transition from ignoramus to "not a true bill" or "not found" happened at different points in different jurisdictions, making the terminology an unreliable guide to dating unless the researcher also establishes local practice. Some American jurisdictions used "ignored" as an intermediate form well into the nineteenth century, complicating the picture further. Sources that predate this transition will use ignoramus where modern practitioners and modern secondary sources would say "no-billed."
The Law Mind corpus contains substantial early English and American criminal procedure materials where ignoramus appears without explanation, as contemporaneous readers needed none. Cross-referencing with grand jury materials, indictment records, and treatises on criminal pleading will clarify procedural context. Burrill's citations to Coke's reports and early English cases offer a starting point for the term's deepest historical roots.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: a grand jury endorsement signaling insufficient evidence, with the effect of refusing to return a true bill. Black's (both editions) and Burrill are substantively identical on this point, with Burrill providing the richer citation trail to early English case law, including the Poulterers' Case in Coke's reports. Anderson's entry is unhelpfully thin, directing only to the related term IGNORARI without independent explanation.
Webster's 1913 is notable for capturing both the legal and the colloquial meanings in a single entry, implicitly acknowledging the word's dual life at the turn of the twentieth century. By that point the legal meaning was already retreating from practice. None of the historical legal dictionaries address the satirical and linguistic history by which the procedural term became a common insult — that thread belongs to general historical lexicography rather than legal sources, but it is essential context for understanding why the word survived in ordinary English long after it disappeared from courtroom usage.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the jurisdictional variation in transition timing, nor the precise procedural distinction between a grand jury's ignoramus and other means by which a prosecution could fail before trial. Researchers should not assume uniform practice across jurisdictions based on any single dictionary entry.
Jurisdictional Note
Ignoramus was a feature of English common law grand jury practice adopted broadly in American jurisdictions, but the timing of its replacement by "not a true bill" or equivalent language varied considerably. Some American states retained "ignored" as late as the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers working with specific colonial, state, or federal records should verify local grand jury practice for the period in question rather than relying on the dictionaries' general statements about "modern" usage, which reflect different baselines.