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.
His father held all kinds of jobs, often at the same time: He was a warehouse foreman, ran a fencing company and unloaded box cars.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
With his breath condensing in clouds in temperatures double figures below zero, a foreman summed the attitude that is common here, when I asked him why Russia was attacking them.
From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026
Halligan told Nachmanoff she brought an altered indictment to the grand jury’s foreman and had them sign off on it without another vote from the full jury.
From Salon • Nov. 19, 2025
In Texas, a white foreman stopped Alvarado and his group from picking in cotton fields just before a plane covered the crop with DDT.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 10, 2025
The foreman ordered the workers back to work.
From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat
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.
