Definition
An archaic synonym for juror — a person who has been impaneled on a jury and is sworn to hear evidence and return a verdict in a legal proceeding. The term carries no distinct meaning from juror and is encountered almost exclusively in older legal texts, statutes, and court records. Modern usage has entirely displaced it in favor of juror or, in collective reference, jury member.
Common Confusion
JURYMAN vs. JUROR: These terms are substantively identical. The displacement of juryman by juror is purely a matter of linguistic convention, not legal evolution. A researcher encountering juryman in a historical document should treat it as a direct equivalent of juror with no difference in rights, duties, or qualifications implied. The distinction matters only for indexing and search purposes, not for legal analysis.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research significance of juryman is terminological: it is the dominant form in older Anglo-American legal materials and will appear in statutes, jury rolls, case reports, and treatises from the colonial period through the mid-twentieth century. Researchers searching Law Mind corpus sources for jury-related content using only the modern term juror may miss relevant historical materials indexed under juryman or jurymen (the standard plural form in those sources).
The transition away from juryman accelerated in the twentieth century, in part alongside broader efforts to adopt gender-neutral legal language — juror being perceived as less gendered than juryman. Researchers working with materials from the 1940s through 1970s may encounter both forms within the same jurisdiction's documents, reflecting the shift in progress.
Bouvier's cross-references Webster's Dictionary directly, which is notable: it signals that even nineteenth-century legal lexicographers treated the term as ordinary English rather than technical legal vocabulary requiring independent definition. This is unusual for a Bouvier entry and confirms that juryman was never a term of art.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three historical sources — Black's (1st Ed.), Black's (2nd Ed.), and Bouvier's — are in complete agreement: juryman means a juror; one who is impaneled on a jury. There is no substantive variation across any of the entries, and none of the sources attribute any specialized legal meaning beyond this equivalence.
Bouvier's explicit citation to Webster's Dictionary is the only notable divergence in approach. It reflects Bouvier's characteristic practice of grounding common legal vocabulary in general English usage when no technical legal distinction exists. Black's entries across both editions are functionally identical, confirming that the term underwent no redefinition between editions.
None of the historical sources address the gendered character of the term or its eventual displacement, which is consistent with their period. That analytical observation belongs to the researcher rather than the historical lexicographers.
Jurisdictional Note
Juryman appeared in the statutory and common law vocabulary of English and American jurisdictions without meaningful variation in meaning. Its obsolescence is universal across modern common law systems; no jurisdiction retains it as a term of legal significance distinct from juror.