a person in charge of a particular department, group of workers, etc., as in a factory or the like.
the member of a jury selected to preside over and speak for all the jurors on the panel.
Gender-neutral form: supervisor. a person, often experienced, who supervises other workmen
Female equivalent: forewoman. law the principal juror, who presides at the deliberations of a jury
See -man.
1175–1225; Middle English forman chief servant, steward. See fore-, man
On many job sites, the boss or supervisor is called the foreman. If you get a job on a construction crew, the foreman is the person in charge. While the supervisor in an office, hospital, or school has a totally different title, in manual labor it's common to use the word foreman. This is true in factories and plants, as well as on ranches and railroads. Even on a jury there's a foreman, the member who announces the group's verdict. A woman in one of these roles might be called foreman, forewoman, or foreperson. A simpler, gender-neutral compromise is to use "supervisor" instead.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Daniel, the foreman in this remote, informal, small-scale mine in Kono, the diamond region of Sierra Leone, shows me the gravel he's picking through with his fingers.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
I started as a night warehouse foreman, and then I ran a tanker and barge dock in Boston.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
Pete Hawkins, aged 17 at the time, was working nearby with the son of foreman Jim Flint.
From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026
The crew members, led by longtime foreman Raul, wore jeans, sneakers, steel-toed boots and bandannas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2025
The foreman and another worker carried a cot and blanket from the factory.
From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat
Craig and Lindsay Foreman have both been on hunger strike since May, when prison authorities preventing them from calling their families.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
George Foreman and Muhammad Ali climbed off the couch too many times to mention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
He said the hunger strike was now the family's "biggest concern", adding that Craig Foreman was on day 30 of the protest while Lindsay Foreman was on day 21.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, from East Sussex, were arrested in January of last year while passing through Iran on a global motorbike journey.
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
When they had that fight down there with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman we had tons of tourists from that.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
The colonial trade also ravaged the archipelago's forests and wrecked communities, with able-bodied men required to offer 40 days of unpaid service to fell trees and build ships under Spanish foremen.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
Construction-software firms are selling AI-powered tools that can assist site managers and foremen with work like analyzing sites for potential safety violations—tasks AI models can accomplish by searching through and synthesizing large amounts of data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026
"My family were quarrymen from the Nantlle Valley in Caernarfonshire, but got good jobs in the mines because of their experience, as foremen and safety officers," Dr Foster Evans said.
From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2023
Those experiences find their way into the stories in the form of wracked bodies and foremen who vanish come payday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2022
Doc waited at the ambulance with its crew, and Mr. Van Dyke watched with a little knot of foremen and engineers from the porch outside Dad’s office.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
