IGNORAMUS (Latin for " we do not know," " we take no

See also:

• NOTICE

notice of ")  , properly an English law term for the endorsement on the bill of indictment made by a grand jury when they " throw out " the bill, i.e. when they do not consider that the case should go to a petty jury . The expression is now obsolete, " not a true bill," " no bill," being used . The expressions " ignoramus jury," " ignoramus Whig," &c., were common in the political satires and pamphlets of the years following on the throwing out of the bill for high treason against the 2nd earl of Shaftesbury in 1681 . The application of the term to an ignorant person dates from the early part of the 17th century . The New English Dictionary quotes two examples illustrating the early connexion of the term with the law or lawyers . George Ruggle (1575–1622) in 1615 wrote a Latin play with the title Ignoramus, the name being also that of the chief character in it, intended for one Francis Brakin, the recorder of Cambridge . It is a satire against the ignorance and pettifogging of the common lawyers of the day . It was answered by a prose tract (not printed till 1648) by one Robert Callis, serjeant-at-law . This bore the title of The Case and Argument against Sir Ignoramus of Cambridge .