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''summary'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''summary'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260127004310-00-⌔

summary - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

summary (comparative more summary, superlative most summary)

  • Concise, brief, or presented in a condensed form; presenting information in such a form.
    • ✤ Synonyms: summative, summarizing (part. adj.)
    • ✤ Near-synonym: abstractive
    • ✤ A summary review is in the appendix.
  • Performed speedily, without formal ceremony, and (especially) without regard to legality.
    • ✤ Near-synonym: extrajudicial
    • ✤ They used summary executions to break the resistance of the people.
  • (law) Performed by omitting the procedures of a full trial, but within a legally valid framework.
    • ✤ Hypernyms: expedited, expeditious
    • ✤ The matter was brought to a close by summary dismissal of the cases.
    • ✤ The summary executions caused outrage.

Noun

summary (plural summaries)

  • An abstract or a condensed presentation of the substance of a body of material.
    • ✤ I’d forgotten what happened in the first Harry Potter book so I read a summary of the narrative before starting the second one.
    • ✤ make a summary of the events

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈsʌm.ə.ɹi/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Homophone: summery

Etymology 1

From Middle English summary, from Medieval Latin summārius, from Latin summa (“total, sum”) + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives).12

Etymology 2

From Medieval Latin summārium, from Latin summa (“total, sum”) + -ārium (suffix forming nouns of purpose).3

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. “summary, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

  2. “summārī, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  3. “summary, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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Secondary

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