venire facias

from The Century Dictionary.

• In law, a writ or precept directed to the sheriff, requiring him to cause a jury or a number of jurors to come or appear in court, for the trial of causes. Also, in common legal parlance, venire.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• A judicial writ or precept directed to the sheriff, requiring him to cause a certain number of qualified persons to appear in court at a specified time, to serve as jurors in said court.
• A writ in the nature of a summons to cause the party indicted on a penal statute to appear. Called also venire.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun law A judicial writ or precept directed to the sheriff, requiring him to cause a certain number of qualified persons to appear in court at a specified time to serve as jurors.
• noun law A summons to cause the party indicted on a penal statute to appear.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a judicial writ ordering a sheriff to summon people for jury duty