jury

plural juries

1. lawA group of individuals chosen from the general population to hear and decide a case in a court of law.

   1 more example

   And so the jury and he approached, as if this were a time of peace instead of one of the greatest world disturbances ever known in history, the question whether the prosecution had proved to the jury’s satisfaction that George Joseph Smith was guilty of murder. The jury were the shield which stood between him and death, unless, to the jury’s satisfaction, he was proved to be guilty. Yet while they were the shield of the man accused, they were also the Sword of the State; and if the man were proved guilty, they were the servants of the State to punish him. Their respective functions were these: he the judge, had to settle the law, and the jury must take the law from him. The jury were judges of fact.

   1952, James Avery Joyce, Justice At Work, Pan 1957 edition, page 92

2. A group of judges in a competition.
3. slangentertainmentThe audience attending the first night of a performance, whose reaction may determine whether it succeeds or fails.

   The jury which decides on the first night usually seals the fate of the season.

   1828, The New Monthly Magazine, page 418

   1 more example

   The widespread idea that before a first-night the audience, dressed to the nose, dines en masse at the Colony and proceeds elegantly to the scene in Hispanos is as fabulous as that which imagines it assembles at Lindy's delicatessen in yesterday's shirt and moves on to the theatre in garbage wagons. And no less spurious is the theory that, in either case or in both together, the jury is possessed of a remarkably rich acumen in the matter of theatrical values.

   1971, George Jean Nathan, The Entertainment of a Nation: Or, Three-sheets in the Wind, page 130

present singular third person juries · participle present jurying · participle past juried · past juried

1. To judge by means of a jury.

1. in compoundsnot comparablenauticalFor temporary use; applied to a temporary contrivance.

   jury mast

   2 more examples

   jury rudder

   For the following two days all went well with us, save that the ship continued to make water so freely as to necessitate the use of the pumps at the middle and end of every watch, a fair breeze driving us along under our jury-canvas at the rate of five to six knots per hour.

   1898, Harry Collingwood [pseudonym; William JC Lancaster], A Pirate of the Caribbees