Meaning & use
sist
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Meanings
verbtransitivelegalScottish
In Scottish courts, to pause a legal case so that nothing happens until a set event or decision takes place.
Grammar: Takes the case or action as its object: the court sisted the action.
Patterns
- sist an action
- sist proceedings
The judge sisted the case until the appeal was decided.
Lawyers asked the court to sist the proceedings for a month.
The action was sisted while the two sides tried to settle.
verbtransitivelegalScottish
In Scots law, to bring a person into a case as a party, or to order them to appear.
Grammar: Takes a person as object, often with as: sist him as a defender.
Patterns
- sist someone as something
The insurer was sisted as a party to the dispute.
The court sisted the owner of the land as a defender.
A new defender was sisted after the first one withdrew.
Word forms
| third person singular | sists |
|---|---|
| past tense | sisted |
| past participle | sisted |
| -ing form | sisting |
Common combinations
- sist an action
- The pursuer asked the court to sist the action.
- sist the proceedings
- The sheriff agreed to sist the proceedings for two weeks.
- case is sisted
- The case is sisted until the new evidence arrives.
- sist a party
- The court may sist a party who has an interest in the outcome.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stay
- Stay is the usual term in English and American courts for pausing a case, and sist is its Scottish equivalent.
- suspend
- Suspend is a general word for temporary stopping and is not tied to courts the way sist is.
- adjourn
- Adjourn usually means ending a hearing for now to resume later, rather than freezing the whole case.
Opposites
Word family
- sisted adjective
- describing a case that has been paused
- sisting noun
- the act of pausing a legal action
Commonly confused: sist or assist?
sist vs assist
Assist means to help someone and has nothing to do with pausing a case, though sist can look like a shortened form of it.
Practice
In a Scottish court, what does it mean if a judge decides to sist an action?
Choose one answer.
To sist an action is to hold it temporarily. It is not a final ruling, so dismissal or a verdict would be wrong.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sist”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.