SUMMONS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Summons

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/sˈəmənz/ Listen

noun

Summons n. (pl. summonses)

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. "Special summonses by the king." "This summons... unfit either to dispute or disobey." "He sent to summon the seditious, and to offer pardon; but neither summons nor pardon was regarded."

(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.

(Mil.) A demand to surrender.

verb

Summons v. t. To summon. (R. or Colloq.)

See images of 'Summons'

Etymology of 'Summons'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Summons" Quotes from Famous Books

... slowly, and slowly scrutinized the prisoners one by one. The head of black curly was bent down, and I saw her eyes rest upon it while she stood in silence. It was as if he felt the summons of her glance, for he raised his head. His face was scarlet, but ...

— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... not realized how far they had roamed up the stream, and the length of the way back surprised them. It is not an easy matter to hurry over slippery stones, though they made what speed they could, urged by another summons from the whistle. ...

— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... thunders. From cun and tura, brother, is probably derived cuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title con, the messenger who summons their chieftains ...

— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... an amazing story to hear upon a mountain crest in Utopia, this Hampstead affair, this story of a Frognal heart. "Frognal," he says, is the place where they met, and it summons to my memory the word on a board at the corner of a flint-dressed new road, an estate development road, with a vista of villas up a hill. He had known her before he got his professorship, and neither her "people" nor his—he speaks that detestable middle-class ...

— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... petit, lights a Maryland and poises a louis between his thumb and fore-finger, the nails of which are long and dirty.... The music is always playing.... The little girl from Brittany is again alone in the corner. There is fear in her face. She is beginning to know. She summons her courage and walks to the door, on through.... The agent de service twirls his moustache and points after her. "She soon will know." I follow. She hesitates for a second at the street door and then starts ...

— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

More quotes...