summons

1. 1.

   call in an official matter, such as to attend court

   Synonymssummoncite

   Broadercall

   Narrowervouchdemand

Other forms of summons

plural

summonses·

past tense

summonsed·

present participle

summonsing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about summons

What does summons mean?

summons means "a request to be present". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in summons?

summons has 2 syllables: sum-mons. The stress falls on "sum". In IPA it is /ˈsʌmənz/.

What is another word for summons?

Close synonyms include bidding, process, summon, cite. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is summons a common word?

summons is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.