Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SORE-HON, or SORN, n. [Irish and Scottish.]

A kind of servile tenure which subjected the tenant to maintain his chieftain gratuitously, whenever he wished to indulge himself in a debauch. So that when a person obtrudes himself on another for bed and board, he is said to sorn, or be a sorner. – Spenser. Macbean.