December 05, 2011
- sojourn (verb)
- What does it mean?
- : to stay as a temporary resident : stop
- How do you use it?
- My oldest brother sojourned in Italy for several months during one of his college breaks.
- Are you a word wiz?
"Sojourn" comes to us ultimately from two Latin words. What do you think those two words together mean?You've got it together if you chose C! Our Modern English word "sojourn" comes from the Latin prefix "sub-," meaning "under" or "during," and the Late Latin word "diurnum," meaning "day." These two words were combined to make a verb that meant "to stay in a place for a short time," and this verb was then taken into medieval French, where it became "sejurner" or "sujurner." Middle English picked up the word and changed it into "sojourn." Interestingly enough, a cousin of "sojourn" is the word "journey," which also came from the Latin "diurnum."