the.com/trial
The legal system's way of asking twelve strangers to agree on anything.
means A formal test or examination — whether in a courtroom to determine guilt, or in life to determine how much hardship a person can endure.
from From Anglo-Norman 'trial,' rooted in the Old French verb 'trier,' meaning to pick out, sift, or sort — the same root that gives us 'triage.' The image is of separating wheat from chaff: a trial was originally about sorting truth from falsehood, the guilty from the innocent. The word kept its legal sense in English while quietly expanding to cover any ordeal that sifts the strong from the weak.
- word cousin
- shares a root with triage
- jury origin
- medieval juries were witnesses, not deciders
- plea deals
- over 90 percent of cases never reach trial
- double jeopardy
- you cannot be tried twice for the same crime