sojourn

English

Etymology

From Middle English sojourne (noun) and sojournen (verb), from Old French sojor, sojorner (modern séjour, séjourner), from (assumed) Vulgar Latin *subdiurnāre, from Latin sub- (“under, a little over”) + Late Latin diurnus (“lasting for a day”), from Latin dies (“day”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɒd͡ʒən/, /ˈsɒd͡ʒɜːn/, (uncommon) /ˈsəʊd͡ʒɜːn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsoʊd͡ʒɚn/, (verb alternatively) /soʊˈd͡ʒɝn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒd͡ʒən, -ɜː(ɹ)n

Noun

sojourn (plural sojourns)

1. A short stay somewhere.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XLIV, in Francesca Carrara. , volume III, London: Richard Bentley, , (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 367:

     Better the dark, silent, and fated waves of ocean, than the troubled waves of life. There are some whose sojourn on this earth is brief as it is bitter.

   • 1978, Timothy C. Wong, edited by William Schultz, Wu Ching-tzu‎, Twayne Publishers, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 30:

     But if, as we have seen, Wu's ambivalent attitude toward the conventional route to success originated in his early appreciation of the idealistic virtues of his father, then it is possible that parts of the work could have been written much earlier, perhaps even during his sojourn with his father in Chiang-su.

   • 2006, Joseph Price Remington, Paul Beringer, Remington: The Science And Practice Of Pharmacy, page 1168:

     The use of vasoconstrictors to increase the sojourn of local anesthetics at the site of infiltration continues […]

2. A temporary residence.

   Synonym: (abroad, obsolete) peregrination

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     Though long detain'd / In that obscure sojourn

Synonyms

• abode

Derived terms

• sojourn time

Translations

Verb

sojourn (third-person singular simple present sojourns, present participle sojourning, simple past and past participle sojourned)

1. (intransitive) To reside somewhere temporarily, especially as a guest or lodger.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 12:30:

     Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.

   • a. 1628 (date written), John Hayward, The Life, and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: for Iohn Partridge, , published 1630, →OCLC:

     The soldiers first assembled at Newcastle, […] and here sojourned three days.

Synonyms

• stay over, stop; See also Thesaurus:sojourn

Translations

Related terms

• sojourner
• sojourney

References

Anagrams

• journos