sojourn

C2+ Topic:Places & Geography

US /ˈsoʊdʒɜrn/ UK /ˈsɒdʒɜːn/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a temporary stay in a place

Their sojourn in Lisbon lasted only a fortnight.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a temporary stay in a place stay visit stopover layover residence tarry

Word family

Forms sojourners

Derived forms sojourner

Etymology

From Old French sojorner, sejorner ('to stay, dwell'), from Vulgar Latin *subdiurnare, from Latin sub- ('under') + Late Latin diurnum ('day'), from diēs ('day').

sojorner Old French diurnum la-lat diēs Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Places & Geography

External links

# sojourn

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈsoʊdʒɜrn/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsɒdʒɜːn/

## Meanings
1. a temporary stay in a place

## Examples
- Their sojourn in Lisbon lasted only a fortnight.

## Synonyms
- stay
- visit
- stopover
- layover
- residence
- tarry

## Derived Forms
- sojourner

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: sojorner
- Root: diurnum
- Root: diēs

## Etymology
From Old French sojorner, sejorner ('to stay, dwell'), from Vulgar Latin *subdiurnare, from Latin sub- ('under') + Late Latin diurnum ('day'), from diēs ('day').

## AI Etymology
Sojourn comes from Old French sojorner, sejorner ('to stay, dwell'), from Vulgar Latin *subdiurnare, from Latin sub- ('under') + Late Latin diurnum ('day'), from diēs ('day'). The historical chain includes Old French sojorner, Latin diurnum, and Latin diēs. Older glosses in the chain include "to stay, dwell", "under", and "day", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, sojourn is best read as compound and borrowing, yielding an English noun and verb shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun and verb, with the sense "a temporary stay in a place". English derivatives include sojourner. The result is an English noun and verb whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Places & Geography

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