sojourn
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
sojournsimple
-
sojournssimple
-
have sojournedperfect
-
has sojournedperfect
-
am sojourningprogressive
-
are sojourningprogressive
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is sojourningprogressive
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have been sojourningperfect progressive
-
has been sojourningperfect progressive
Past
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sojournedsimple
-
had sojournedperfect
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was sojourningprogressive
-
were sojourningprogressive
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had been sojourningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sojourn
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English verb sojurnen, Old French sojorner “to rest, stay,” from unattested Vulgar Latin subdiurnāre “to stay for a time,” a compound of the preposition and prefix sub, sub-, here meaning “a little, for a while” and the Latin verb diurnāre “to live for a long time,” a derivative of the Latin adjective diurnus “belonging to the daytime, occurring every day”; noun derivative of the verb; see journey
Explanation
A sojourn is a short stay or visit. If you want a fancy way to say that you took a trip to the countryside, you might talk about your country sojourn. The verb is originally from the Latin prefix sub-, "under" plus diurnus, "of a day." You might refer to your vacation as a sojourn, but it might make more sense if you are describing a trip to Provence rather than a trip to Disney World. Or In figurative use, sojourn means "to delve" — your math teacher may stop midway through lessons on fractions for a brief sojourn into techniques for slicing pie.
Vocabulary lists containing sojourn
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Grade 10, List 5
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"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 14–18
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Beyond a couple of scuff marks and some debris jammed into the treads, our sojourn had left the shoes looking much as they had when I’d first taken them off the shelf.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026
Those uprisings, later coined the Arab Spring, succeeded in bringing about a short democratic sojourn in Tunisia and a much briefer one in Egypt, but they also unleashed unrest.
From Barron's ● Apr. 10, 2026
More gave Holbein a place to stay while the painter was in London and became his most important patron during his two-year sojourn.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
New York is one of three destinations on Doncic’s summer sojourn, a one-day stop in Chicago next followed by an intriguingly timed visit to Los Angeles on Saturday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2025
All that ended abruptly the day his father returned from a sojourn in King’s Landing.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Relocation agencies say their new clients go far beyond young adventurers on European sojourns or their retiring parents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
During British rule, the naan remained a food item enjoyed by the elite, but it also travelled to the West through the sojourns of English travellers.
From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025
We have him to thank, then, for the series’ sojourns to the deck of 19th century pirate Zheng Yi Sao’s ship and the Trojan War.
From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2024
The organization reminded readers to remember the National Park Service’s “10 Essentials,” a list of basic items recommended for sojourns out into a national park or other wilderness areas.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 14, 2023
Perhaps on his rare sojourns into civilization, Smith had passed the Howard Automobile Company dealerships springing up.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
The group had sojourned to Badwater Basin, the park’s lowest point and the lowest point in North America, which sits 282 feet below sea level.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2023
But it appears that Rusty, who sojourned briefly beyond the zoo’s bounds nine years ago, was not the only member of his species to show a seeming wish for freedom.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 4, 2022
Species of fish, unfit for human consumption, were food for various vulnerable migratory birds that sojourned along its banks.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 12, 2022
Scores of friends and family already have sojourned to Utah to pay their respects to a man who planted in them a passion for the explosive cacophony of color, variety and fragrance found in nature.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 6, 2015
All night long Sarai had sojourned in dreamscapes wholly alien to her.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Part of this is in the rich tradition of European reporters sojourning in the United States who find casual grotesques about Americans far more lucrative and less taxing than actually trying to meet the natives.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2026
Moreover, a little solo sojourning is good for all of us.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2025
Between courses, she explored on her own, staying with friends and relatives or sojourning in hostels and hotels.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2018
Part of Santa Barbara-based California Youth Theatre, it featured underage auteurs on summer break sojourning in a rickety school bus to packed playhouses around the state.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2017
She would “shake her head and frown down a legion of children,” and “the wild ones went home tame enough after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof.”
From Dickens As an Educator by Hughes, James L. (James Laughlin)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
