sojourn
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
have sojournedperfect
-
has sojournedperfect 3rd person singular
-
am sojourningprogressive 1st person singular
-
have been sojourningperfect progressive
-
sojourningparticiple
-
has been sojourningperfect progressive 3rd person singular
-
are sojourningprogressive
-
is sojourningprogressive 3rd person singular
-
sojournssingular 3rd person
Past
-
had sojournedperfect
-
had been sojourningperfect progressive
-
was sojourningprogressive singular
-
sojournedsimple
-
were sojourningprogressive plural
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sojournedparticiple
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.
Ernst Baerwald’s odyssey from a cushy childhood in Frankfurt to his final days in a beautiful Berkeley mansion, with a long sojourn in Tokyo along the way, reads like, well, a novel.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 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
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
I had to shake my head, remembering how we all brought him food—sandwiches and cookies and stuff, but his sojourn didn’t last much beyond dinnertime.
From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings
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.
