Sorning

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Freeloading by forcing oneself on others for food, drink or a place to stay, a practice long associated with Scotland
2. The act of living off someone's hospitality by staying on uninvited and refusing to leave
3. Sponging off other people by demanding board and lodging without paying or being asked

Etymology: "Sorning" is the present participle and gerund of "sorn", a Scottish word for sponging off others, especially by staying in someone's house or on their land without paying. The verb is usually traced to "sojourn", though the link is only a possibility, and the record for the word is thin. What the Scottish usage shows is a sense of prolonged, unwelcome stay: a sorning guest or tenant lingers long past any welcome, living at another's expense. Sorning has a second, more specific life in Scottish law and history. It was the name given to the practice of forcing hospitality on tenants or neighbours, sometimes by armed followers of a lord or chief who arrived and demanded food and lodging. Whether the legal sense and the everyday sense developed in step or the legal one came later is not something the evidence settles, so the two are best read as the same idea seen from the tenant's side and the lord's side.

Synonyms: freeloading, sponging, mooching