Sir – John Wright, of Cumnor Hill, (Letters, January 21), commenting on your earlier item about certain persons being “summonsed” to appear in court, complains of “that sneaky non-verb to summonse”.
However, according to the OED, the verb “to summons” (whose past participle is “summonsed”) means “to serve a summons”, and the noun “summons” means “an order to appear in a law court”.
Therefore summonsed = summoned to appear in court. QED, OED.
Rick Taylor, Cumnor
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