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summon.

To call people together; to convene; to convoke.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈsʌmən/
  1. To call people together; to convene; to convoke.

    transitive
  2. To ask someone to come; to send for.

    transitive
  3. To order (goods) and have delivered

  4. To rouse oneself to exert a skill.

    transitive
  5. To call a resource by magic.

    transitive
  6. To summons; convene.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Anglo-Norman somoundre, from Old French sumundre, from Latin summonēre, itself from sub + monēre, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *monéyeti, causative from *men- (“to think”). Compare typologically from the same PIE root mention, Russian помина́ть (pominátʹ), упомина́ть (upominátʹ) (developed less further, keeping strong relation with по́мнить (pómnitʹ)), also compare помина́й как зва́ли (pomináj kak zváli) (<+ звать (zvatʹ)).

noun/ˈsʌmən/
  1. A creature magically summoned to do the summoner's bidding.

  2. call, command, order

Where this word comes from

From Anglo-Norman somoundre, from Old French sumundre, from Latin summonēre, itself from sub + monēre, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *monéyeti, causative from *men- (“to think”). Compare typologically from the same PIE root mention, Russian помина́ть (pominátʹ), упомина́ть (upominátʹ) (developed less further, keeping strong relation with по́мнить (pómnitʹ)), also compare помина́й как зва́ли (pomináj kak zváli) (<+ звать (zvatʹ)).

noun
  1. A fine; a fee or monetary penalty incurred for breaking the law; usually for a minor offence such as a traffic violation.

    Malaysia · colloquial · slang
    You better pay off the parking summon tomorrow before you kena interest on it.
  2. A notice of an infringement of the law, usually incurring such a penalty; a citation or ticket.

    Malaysia · colloquial · slang
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Malay saman (“fine, financial penalty”), which is itself borrowed from English summons (“notice summoning someone to appear in court”). This sense re-emerged in English as summon likely due to the erroneous belief that the original singular English word summons is plural. Doublet of summons and saman.

verb
  1. To impose such a fine or penalty, or to issue a notice thereof.

    Malaysia · colloquial · slang · transitive
    The police summoned the driver for speeding.
    They kena summoned for littering.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Malay saman (“fine, financial penalty”), which is itself borrowed from English summons (“notice summoning someone to appear in court”). This sense re-emerged in English as summon likely due to the erroneous belief that the original singular English word summons is plural. Doublet of summons and saman.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.