SUMMONS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Summons

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/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

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"Summons" Quotes from Famous Books

... into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her treasures ...

— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and there was no rising. This time there will be no summons, but a rising, and a very great one. It will be, primarily, a rising of four hundred Oliverians, strong to avenge many and grievous wrongs; but with them will rise servants and slaves, and to the banner of the Commonwealth, beneath which they will march, ...

— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... a summons came from the captain's tent. George had just returned from his own furlough, and this was their first meeting. Even while their hands clasped, his new, ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... party for the night following? I know you have consented to the party. Let me see. Don't have any one this particular night for dinner, but let it be a summons for the special purpose, at half-past six. Carlyle indispensable, and I should like his wife of all things; her judgment would be invaluable. You will ask Mac, and why not his sister? Stanny and Jerrold I should particularly wish; Edwin Landseer, Blanchard ... and when I meet you, oh! Heaven, ...

— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... showing fine white teeth. The spell of her beauty was moving to him. He might never, he thought, have noticed her at all in other circumstances, if he had not seen her there in the woods and felt her need knock at his heart with the imperative summons of the outraged maternal. Was this the feeling rising in him that had made his mother's servitude to his father so sickening in those years gone by? Was the old string still throbbing? Did it need but a woman's hand to play upon it? And ...

— Old Crow • Alice Brown

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