What is the correct verb corresponding to the noun "summons"?

I have just seen this usage:

... you have been summonsed ...

My immediate reaction was one of (let's say) surprise; I would have thought the correct form was:

... you have been summoned ...

Is there, in fact, a verb "to summons", and, if so, where did it come from?


Summons means, in the OED's definition, ‘to cite before a court or a judge or magistrate; to take out a summons against’ and is first recorded in that sense in 1780. It has a similar etymology to summon and was once used as an alternative to it.


If you summons a person, then someone has

served a summons

on or to them.

When they serve (meaning 11b here) the summons, the other person has been served...so serve has two senses.

Summons "authoritative call to be at a certain place for a certain purpose" is late 13c., from O.Fr. sumunse, noun use of fem. pp. of somondre.


Summons is a verb meaning to order someone to appear in court, a meaning it shares with summon. The past tense would be summonsed and summoned respectively.