Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A call by an authority to appear, come, or do something.
- n. Law A notice summoning a defendant to appear in court.
- n. Law A notice summoning a person to report to court as a juror or witness.
- v. Law To serve a court summons to.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A call, especially by authority or the command of a superior, to appear at a place named, or to attend to some public duty; an invitation, request, or order to go to or appear at some place, or to do some other specified thing; a call with more or less earnestness or insistence.
- In law, a call by authority to appear in a court or before a judicial officer; also, the document by which such call is given; a citation to appear before a judge or magistrate. Specifically— A writ calling on a defendant to cause an appearance to the action to be entered for him within a certain time after service, in default whereof the plaintilf may proceed. to judgment and execution.
- Milit., a call to surrender.
- To serve with a summons; summon.
Wiktionary
- n. A call to do something, especially to come.
- n. law A notice summoning someone to appear in court, as a defendant, juror or witness.
- v. transitive To serve someone with a summons.
- v. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of summon.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of summoning; a call by authority, or by the command of a superior, to appear at a place named, or to attend to some duty.
- n. (Law) A warning or citation to appear in court; a written notification signed by the proper officer, to be served on a person, warning him to appear in court at a day specified, to answer to the plaintiff, testify as a witness, or the like.
- n. (Mil.) A demand to surrender.
- v. R. or Colloq. To summon.
WordNet 3.0
- v. call in an official matter, such as to attend court
- n. a request to be present
- n. an order to appear in person at a given place and time
- n. a writ issued by authority of law; usually compels the defendant's attendance in a civil suit; failure to appear results in a default judgment against the defendant
Etymologies
- Inflected forms. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English somons, from Old French somonse, from feminine past participle of somondre, to summon; see summon. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But in some ways the phrase summons what has happened in architecture since 9/11.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Skyscraper as a Pillar of Confidence
“When the legislature confers on a police officer the same power to deprive an individual of his liberty by arrest with or without a warrant, with all the attendant circumstances, for a trivial offence warranting a fine of a few dollars as it does in the case of robbery or murder, or to arrest when a summons is all that is required, it alienates the public support for law and law enforcement and undermines the authority of all law.”
“A second messenger interrupted with imperative summons from the council.”
“There's the literal, like Chocobos, Moogles and certain summons; and the less so, like a particular visual and musical aesthetic, or themes of war ethics or class struggles.”
“When the extraordinary summons from the lawyers arrives, informing her that she has inherited a property on the demise of a mother she had thought died when she was three, she sets off north in search of answers.”
“I picked it up like a jury summons, which is to say, unenthusiastically.”
“Typing his name summons him to a thread, most likely with a string of condescending insults and drummed-up outrage over the fact that we're calling him a troll.”
McCain Campaign Slams New York Times: Not A Journalistic Organization "By Any Standard"
“The word summons up images of late-night cram sessions, essays fleshed out with as many adjectives as can fit onto a sheet of wide-ruled paper, bibliographies that are technically works of fiction, and grades that are lower than we secretly believe they ought to be.”
“Instead, the name summons up unsparing caricature: grime, gangsters, pollution, ugly highways, Byzantine shopping malls, Saharan parking lots and a level of culture somewhere between troglodyte and troll.”
“On October 13th, 2006, he has received a summons from a Criminal Judge announcing him that he is held responsible of the crime of supporting Israel and also of acting against Palestinian people.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘summons’.
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Shakespeare.05
vaulting, dismal, gory, malice, summons, commend, forswear, dwindle, avarice, pristine, adage, predominance and 2 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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words unknown
repeat!!!
laissez faire, propensity, punitive, explicit, whim, extenuating, distort, gross, grossly, hearsay, dispel, apprehensive and 113 more...
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TT3 Lesson 31
active, adolescent, adoption, brandy, canine, catheter, cavity, collapse, complain, coordinator, crew, cuddly and 31 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for summons.
qroqqa So where does the final -s come from, qroqqa? Some English noun or verb inflection that's been fused onto it? ← READER'S VOICE
No, it's an almost original part of it. It came with the word from French into English: forms such as sumunse, somonse suggest a Late Latin *summonsa, a past participle of summonĕre, earlier summonēre (sub "under", mon- "warn"). I didn't know that. Aug 29, 2008