Obs. Forms: α. 4 som(e)nour, 5 somenor, 6 sommenor. β. 4 somenere, 4, 6–7 somner. [f. somene SOMNE v.2, or a. AF. somnour.] An official summoner. Also transf.
α. c. 1320. Pol. Songs (Camden), 157. Ȝet ther sitteth somenours syexe other sevene.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XV. 128. Sectoures and sudenes, somnoures and her lemmannes.
1474. Cal. Anc. Rec. Dublin (1889), 350. Walter Wotlon somenor.
1570. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees, 1838), 342. John Roddh’m the sommenr.
β. 1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. III. 59. Sysours and somners, shereyues and here clerkes. Ibid., X. 263. Hure salue ys of supersedeas in someneres boxes.
1521. Coventry Leet-Bk., 672. At suche tymes as they shal-be Reasonably warnyd by the somner.
1563. Homilies, II. Of Repentance, III. When the hyghest somner of all, whiche is death, shall come.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., III. xviii. 105. [They] haue like vnto Somners, as many brybes as they can carry away.
1608. Middleton, Trick to Catch Old One, II. i. C iij b. They may do any thing there man, and feare neither Beadle nor Somner.
