Origin and history of sun

"the sun as a heavenly body or planet; daylight; the rays of the sun, sunlight," also the sun as a god or object of worship; Middle English sonne, from Old English sunne "the sun," from Proto-Germanic *sunno (source also of Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German sunna, Middle Dutch sonne, Dutch zon, German Sonne, Gothic sunno "the sun"), from PIE *s(u)wen-, an alternative form of root *sawel- "the sun."

Old English sunne was fem. (as generally in Germanic), and the fem. pronoun was used in English until 16c.; since then masc. has prevailed, "without necessarily implying personification" [OED].

Under the sun for "anywhere in the world" is by c. 1200 (late Old English had under sunnan). The empire on which the sun never sets (1630) originally was the Spanish, later the British. To have one's place in the sun (1680s) is first in English in a translation of Pascal's "Pensées"; the German imperial foreign policy sense (1897) is from a speech by von Bülow. When the sun is over the foreyard is "noon" at sea, the traditional time of the first serving of the day's first drink.

mid-15c., "set something in the sunlight, expose to the sun's rays," from sun (n.). Intransitive meaning "expose oneself to the sun, bask in the sun" is recorded from c. 1600.