Definition
In Scots law, the period between sunrise and sunset — that is, the daylight hours during which the sun is above the horizon. The term functions as a temporal restriction rather than an independent legal concept: it specifies the window within which certain legal acts must be performed to be valid. Most notably, poinding (the distraint or seizure of a debtor's movable property) was required to be executed upsun — meaning the act of seizure had to be commenced and completed while daylight remained.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not listed as a current entry; the compound is obsolete in ordinary English.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The time during which the sun is up, or above the horizon; the time between sunrise and sunset."
The common and legal meanings are essentially identical in content, but the legal usage is operative where the common usage is merely descriptive. In Scots law, upsun is not simply a description of daytime — it is a legally enforced condition of validity. Performance of a poinding outside these hours rendered the act procedurally defective.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter upsun almost exclusively in historical Scots law materials — institutional writings, older procedure treatises, and commentaries on diligence (the Scots law term for enforcement of civil obligations). The term has no currency in modern Scottish civil procedure, which governs equivalent processes through statute rather than institutional rules expressed in archaic vocabulary.
The key research trap is treating upsun as a freestanding legal concept with its own doctrinal body. It is not. It is a procedural condition attached to poinding specifically, and its significance is almost entirely absorbed by understanding what poinding required. Researchers investigating Scots diligence historically should use upsun as a pointer toward the procedural formalities governing poinding rather than as a searchable subject heading with independent literature.
The cross-reference in Forbes' Institutes is the anchor citation in all three source dictionaries. Researchers should note that Black's 1st edition cites "pt. 3, p. 32" while Black's 2nd edition cites "pt. 8, p. 32" — this discrepancy likely reflects a transcription or typesetting error between editions rather than a different source. Burrill reproduces the pt. 3 citation and adds the bracketed gloss "[i.e. while the sun is up]," which is the clearest editorial confirmation of the term's meaning.
Because upsun appears in Law Mind corpus sources only in the context of Scots procedural law, researchers should not attempt to apply the concept to English common law equivalents (such as distress or replevin), which were governed by their own distinct procedural frameworks and did not use this term.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries are in complete agreement on substance: upsun means daylight hours, and the operative legal rule is that poinding must be executed during that window. The definitions are nearly verbatim copies of one another, all tracing to the same passage in Forbes' Institutes.
Burrill adds the most value among the three, supplying the parenthetical gloss and placing the citation within a slightly fuller textual context, though the surrounding text in the Burrill entry appears to bleed into an adjacent entry on bills of exchange — a likely artifact of the original dictionary's typesetting. Researchers should disregard the bill-of-exchange language that follows the upsun entry in Burrill as belonging to a different headword.
None of the three dictionaries explain what consequence attended a poinding conducted outside daylight hours, or whether exceptions existed for midsummer or winter latitudes where daylight varied dramatically. That gap reflects the limited scope of dictionary treatment rather than the absence of doctrine — researchers requiring that depth should consult the Forbes text directly.
Jurisdictional Note
Upsun is exclusively a term of Scots law. It has no equivalent usage in English, Irish, or American legal traditions. Modern Scottish civil procedure has replaced the institutional framework within which this term operated.