subpoena

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The Word of the Day for August 12 is: 

subpoena   \suh-PEE-nuh\   noun
     : a writ commanding a person designated in it to appear in 
court under a penalty for failure 

Example sentence:
     Defense lawyers have issued subpoenas to several supposed 
witnesses of the crime.

Did you know?
     If you think you recognize the "sub-" in "subpoena" as the 
prefix meaning "under, beneath, below," you're on 
target. "Subpoena" arrived in Modern English (via the Middle 
English "suppena") from the Latin "sub poena," a combination 
of "sub" and "poena," meaning "penalty." Other "poena" 
descendants in English include "impunity" ("freedom from 
penalty"), "penal" ("of or relating to punishment"), and 
even "punish." There is also the verb "subpoena," as in "Defense 
lawyers have subpoenaed several supposed witnesses of the crime."