Horning

In Scotch law

"Letters of horning" is the name given to a judicial process issuing on the decree of a court, by which the debtor is summoned to perform his obligation in terms of the decree, the consequence of his failure to do so being liability to arrest and imprisonment. It was anciently the custom to proclaim a debtor who had failed to obey such process a rebel or outlaw, which was done by three blasts of the horn by the king's sergeant in a public place. This was called "putting to the horn," whence the name.