sojourn
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
- sojourner noun
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.
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
Titian’s Roman sojourn lasted more than six months.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026
Two of the astronauts will get into Starship HLS and descend to the moon’s surface for a roughly one-week sojourn.
From Slate • Dec. 9, 2025
Their Polish guide during this sojourn relates that they seemed “like space aliens” walking the streets, the first tangible proof to Poles that punk rock was real.
From Salon • Jul. 22, 2025
So it is alarming, upon returning to the upper middle class from a sojourn, however artificial and temporary, among the poor, to find the rabbit hole close so suddenly and completely behind me.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
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.
