Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A call by an authority to appear, come, or do something.
- noun An order or process directing a person, especially a defendant in a case, to appear in court.
- noun An order or process directing a person to report to court as a potential juror.
- transitive verb To order to appear in or report to court by means of a summons.
- transitive verb To serve with a summons.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To serve with a summons; summon.
- 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.
- Milit., a call to surrender.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb R. or Colloq. To summon.
- noun 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.
- noun (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.
- noun (Mil.) A demand to surrender.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Third-person singular simple present indicative form of
summon . - noun A
call to do something, especially tocome . - noun law A
notice summoning someone toappear incourt , as adefendant ,juror orwitness . - verb transitive To
serve someone with a summons.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb call in an official matter, such as to attend court
- noun a request to be present
- noun an order to appear in person at a given place and time
- noun 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
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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But in some ways the phrase summons what has happened in architecture since 9/11.
The Skyscraper as a Pillar of Confidence Julie V. Iovine 2011
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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.
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A second messenger interrupted with imperative summons from the council.
The Sun of the Wolf 2010
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A second messenger interrupted with imperative summons from the council.
The Son of the Wolf 2010
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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.
Archive 2008-04-01 SVGL 2008
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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.
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I picked it up like a jury summons, which is to say, unenthusiastically.
AMERICAN SUBVERSIVE DAVID GOODWILLIE 2010
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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" 2009
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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.
seanan_mcguire: Thoughts on Writing #32: Deadlines. seanan_mcguire 2009
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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.
qroqqa commented on the word summons
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.
August 29, 2008