summing up

English

Verb

summing up

1. present participle and gerund of sum up

Noun

summing up (plural summings up or summing ups)

1. A summary of the main points, especially (law) a judge's recapitulation of the evidence given to a jury before it withdraws to consider its verdict.
   • 1921 September 1, “Cry on Geraldine’s Shoulder”, in Oakland Tribune, volume XCV, number 53, Oakland, Calif.: Tribune Publishing Co., page 10, column 6:

     Here is one of the most masterly summing ups of the present industrial warfare 'between men and women that has come to this column. It shows the present dilemma and how it has come to be, but it does not suggest a solution, for the writer realizes, in common with most thinking people, that at present there is no solution.

   • 1922, Robert Stewart Sutliffe, Impressions of an Average Juryman, New York, N.Y.: Herbert H. Foster, page 36:

     SOME SUMMING UPS / A lawyer’s opening address is properly a short talk to arouse interest in a selling proposition, the evidence is the sample and the summing up a final effort to close the sale.

   • 1956, Marshall Van Winkle, “The Bond Street Mystery: The Two Trials of Madame Rachel”, in Sixty Famous Cases: 29 English Cases – 31 American Cases, from 1778 to the Present, volume 1, Long Branch, N.J.: Warren S. Ayres, →LCCN, pages 67–68:

     What the English call in their courts the trial judge’s “summing up” we call in our country the “charge to the jury.” […] When I have contrasted the exercise of this judicial function, as I have been reading summing ups and charges to the jury, the superiority of the summing up of the British judge over the charge to the jury of the American judge for all beneficial purposes has been clearly seen.

Alternative forms

• summing-up