What's the difference between summons and witness?

Summons


Definition:

  • (v.) 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.
  • (v.) 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.
  • (v.) A demand to surrender.
  • (v. t.) To summon.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Senior executives at Network Rail are likely to be summoned to Westminster to explain the engineering overruns that caused chaos for Christmas travellers over the weekend.
  • (2) After five days watching birds illegally shot down and becoming embroiled in tense stand-offs with the police and hunters, Packham was summoned to a police station and interviewed for five hours.
  • (3) Had not Jaggers summoned me to see him on the day of my majority some years later, I might have wondered at the psychological implausibility of an old woman training a child to be a psychopath, but luckily I was so caught up by the possibility of my benefactor's name being revealed that the thought quite slipped my mind.
  • (4) Letterman was summoned to a grand jury hearing later yesterday at which he gave his side of the story.
  • (5) Chelsea must summon a response at Atlético Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday, trying to blot out the memory of the lead that was surrendered so wastefully here.
  • (6) RPC wrote back the next day saying Ashley was in the US and complained that the official had mentioned the prospect of a formal summons for Ashley: “Raising the spectre of a summons, in circumstances where our client has already volunteered the chairman as a witness to assist the committee and we are now liaising over availability, is, in our client’s view, inappropriate.” In the email, RPC said Hellawell was no longer available on 4 March but was now free on 25 March.
  • (7) Horrocks plans to summon the spirit of Margaret Thatcher to make his case: “The [1970] Conservative government came in with a manifesto commitment to kill the Open University, to kill Harold Wilson’s brainchild at birth.
  • (8) The banalities of a news conference take on a strange significance when the men who summon the world's cameras are members of a feared insurgent group that banned television when they ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al-Qaida.
  • (9) The French president, François Hollande, summoned key ministers to a crisis meeting on Thursday afternoon, postponing a planned visit to France's Indian Ocean territories.
  • (10) But among the football-faith community the legendary Anfield Road stadium is not considered a sacred site for nothing, and on this memorable night everyone felt what mighty magic can be summoned here.” Describing the match as “a classic in the illustrious history of these two clubs for years to come”, the commentator Daniel Theweleit also believed that the atmosphere at Anfield put Dortmund’s own famed fan culture into the shade: “Even those who have watched the club for centuries agreed that Dortmund has never achieved this kind of intensity.” Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung found satisfaction in seeing the German coach Jürgen Klopp exporting his magic touch across the Channel.
  • (11) The Chelsea manager, José Mourinho, is anticipating a Football Association summons after Saturday’s loss to Southampton .
  • (12) The former Liverpool, Chelsea and Real Madrid coach made an immediate impact, interrupting a scheduled squad day off by summoning his players for an introductory meeting and training session on Friday afternoon.
  • (13) The shooting down of the plane comes the day after Turkey called for a UN security council meeting to discuss Russian actions in Syria, following the summoning of the Russian ambassador in Ankara to hear a protest over air attacks on Turkmen villages.
  • (14) So why is a CEO such as Marissa Mayer summoning Yahoo staff back into the office ?
  • (15) Around 400 attended court on Friday, most of them responding to a court summons for the first time, many of them anxious and angry about the process.
  • (16) In addition, BBC executives and trustees were summoned by parliamentary committees more than once a month.
  • (17) "Some of you may have heard we have a new judge this year," said Forsyth, summoning his finest brow-raise and hauling the audience at least temporarily on side by sheer force of showbiz will.
  • (18) Stanley stood up, summoned his secretary and said: "Call my bookie."
  • (19) The general atmosphere was that there was no point in summoning the police – the policeman is a local settler from Kiryat Arba who comes to pray with the Hebron settlers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs on Fridays.
  • (20) The Brexiters, by summoning up the patriotic genie, are implicitly calling on Britons to either become more parochial and less diverse – or else aspire to a second imperial age.

Witness


Definition:

  • (v. i.) Attestation of a fact or an event; testimony.
  • (v. i.) That which furnishes evidence or proof.
  • (v. i.) One who is cognizant; a person who beholds, or otherwise has personal knowledge of, anything; as, an eyewitness; an earwitness.
  • (v. i.) One who testifies in a cause, or gives evidence before a judicial tribunal; as, the witness in court agreed in all essential facts.
  • (v. i.) One who sees the execution of an instrument, and subscribes it for the purpose of confirming its authenticity by his testimony; one who witnesses a will, a deed, a marriage, or the like.
  • (v. t.) To see or know by personal presence; to have direct cognizance of.
  • (v. t.) To give testimony to; to testify to; to attest.
  • (v. t.) To see the execution of, as an instrument, and subscribe it for the purpose of establishing its authenticity; as, to witness a bond or a deed.
  • (v. i.) To bear testimony; to give evidence; to testify.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a poll before the debate, 48% predicted that Merkel, who will become Europe's longest serving leader if re-elected on 22 September, would emerge as the winner of the US-style debate, while 26% favoured Steinbruck, a former finance minister who is known for his quick-wit and rhetorical skills, but sometimes comes across as arrogant.
  • (2) We are already witnessing a wholly understandable uprising of protest.
  • (3) Among the guests invited to witness the flypast were six second world war RAF pilots, dubbed the “few” by the wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill.
  • (4) Maguire's colleagues rushed to her side, some administering first aid while others held her attacker, witnesses said.
  • (5) That’s when you heard the ‘boom’.” Teto Wilson also claimed to have witnessed the shooting, posting on Facebook on Sunday morning that he and some friends had been at the Elk lodge, outside which the shooting took place.
  • (6) Any party or witness is entitled to use Welsh in any magistrates court in Wales without prior notice.
  • (7) Solzhenitsyn was acknowledged as a "truth-teller" and a witness to the cruelties of Stalinism of unusual power and eloquence.
  • (8) Unfortunately, under the Faustian pact we have witnessed a double whammy: fiscal policy being used to reduce government spending when the economy is already depressed.
  • (9) John Carver witnessed signs of much-needed improvement from the visitors in a purposeful spell either side of the interval but it was not enough to prevent a fifth successive Premier League defeat.
  • (10) Two officers who witnessed the shooting of unarmed 43-year-old Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati will not face criminal charges, despite seemingly corroborating a false claim that DuBose’s vehicle dragged officer Ray Tensing before he was fatally shot.
  • (11) He could be the target of more punishing wit, as when Michael Foot, noting a tendency to be tougher abroad than at home, called him "a belligerent Bertie Wooster without even a Jeeves to restrain him."
  • (12) Thanks to the groundbreaking technology and heavy investment of a new breed of entertainment retailers offering access services, we are witnessing a revolution in the entertainment industry, benefitting consumers, creators and content owners alike.” ERA acts as a forum for the physical and digital retail sectors of music, and represents over 90% of the of the UK’s entertainment retail market.
  • (13) The observed complications were post-labor hemorrhage (3.1%), polysystolia (4.1%) and vomiting (5.2%), without significant difference with the witness group.
  • (14) At one, in the Gun and Dog pub in Leeds on Tuesday, a witness described how the meeting descended into chaos when one of the rebels smashed a glass and threatened to attack Griffin supporter Mark Collett.
  • (15) My mother told me not to cry.” He has since witnessed the transformation of Hagere Selam.
  • (16) Imagine witnessing a game of bridge being played in the Cabinet War Rooms in the year 2072 AD.
  • (17) The contrast between the two plans is best witnessed from the small park between the Trade Centre and the 1930s National Assembly, one of the few survivors of the earthquake.
  • (18) Results indicate that 75% of the participating boys and 10% of participating girls had witnessed the shooting, stabbing, robbing, or killing of another person in their own lives.
  • (19) FWA chairman Andy Dunn said: "Those members who have been fortunate enough to be working at a match involving Luis Suárez have witnessed an astonishing talent first-hand.
  • (20) The main pregnancy resolution was vaginal via; only 6.3% of the study group subjected cesarean section against 10.3% of the witness group and the most frecuent indication was stationary dilation (1 and 8 cases respectively).