foreman
noun
Simple meaning
The leader of a work crew.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fawrmuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɔɹmən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
management
The leader of a work crew.
law
A man who is foreperson of a jury
law
The member of a jury who presides over it and speaks on its behalf.
A community near Prince George, Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, British Columbia, Canada.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (management) The leader of a work crew.
Used this way, foreman is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Business/professional
Nearby words
- gaffer , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use foreman
- “If you want to leave early you have to ask the foreman.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A member of a work gang who supervises the other workers.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: leader of a work crew
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.