Definition
In Scots law, a sorner is a person who extorts food, drink, lodging, or other hospitality from another by force, threats, or intimidation — taking what is not freely given and without paying for it. The term describes a specific category of wrongdoer recognized in Scottish legal tradition, one who imposes on another's household not through mere social overstaying but through coercive demand or menace. Sorn was both the act and the offense; sorner was the person who committed it.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "One who obtrudes themselves on another for bed and board."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "One who obtrudes himself on another for bed and board."
The common definition captures the social nuisance — the freeloader, the uninvited guest who overstays and consumes without contributing. The legal definition sharpens this considerably: what makes a sorner in Scots law is not mere intrusion or social presumption, but the element of force or menace. The legal sorner is not an embarrassing houseguest; he is closer to a person who demands hospitality under implicit or explicit threat. That coercive element is absent from ordinary usage and is the crux of the legal offense.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term in historical Scots law materials, criminal records, or social history sources should be alert to two distinctions. First, the word appears in both legal and literary contexts in Scottish sources, and its weight differs depending on which register is in use. De Quincey uses it in its softer, colloquial sense; Bell's Dictionary anchors it in criminal law. Second, the coercive element — force or menaces — places sorning closer to extortion or robbery in legal character than to the trespass or nuisance category the common definition suggests. Researchers tracing the history of crimes against property or the person in Scots law, or examining the legal treatment of itinerant populations in early modern Scotland, may find sorning treated alongside similar offenses such as blackmail (in its original Scots sense, involving protection payments extorted from tenants and travelers) and masterful begging. The term is largely obsolete in modern legal usage and will not appear in contemporary statutory materials; it is confined to historical Scots law sources and requires period-appropriate dictionary tools to interpret accurately.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition and draw from the same authority: Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland. Black's (1st ed.) and Burrill's reproduce the definition in nearly identical language — "a person who takes meat and drink from others by force or menaces, without paying for it." The second edition of Black's entry appears corrupted in the source, containing text from an unrelated entry (likely a typesetting or digitization error involving somnambulism), but the substantive content, where recoverable, aligns with the first edition. None of the historical legal dictionaries elaborate on the offense's place in Scots criminal procedure, penalties, or its relationship to comparable common law offenses — they treat it as a definitional matter and move on. Researchers needing deeper treatment will need to consult Bell's Principles of the Law of Scotland directly and period criminal law commentaries.
Jurisdictional Note
Sorning is a distinctly Scottish legal concept with no direct common law equivalent in English, Irish, or American legal traditions. It does not appear in English criminal law dictionaries of the same period. Researchers working in English or colonial American sources will not encounter the term as a legal category; its appearance in any non-Scottish legal context should be treated with caution.