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''sojourn'' ▫ᴱᴺ|Definition|1st|20260213203653-00-⌔

sojourn - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

sojourn (plural sojourns)

  • A short stay somewhere.
    • Better the dark, silent, and fated waves of ocean, than the troubled waves of life. There are some whose sojourn on this earth is brief as it is bitter.1
    • But if, as we have seen, Wu’s ambivalent attitude toward the conventional route to success originated in his early appreciation of the idealistic virtues of his father, then it is possible that parts of the work could have been written much earlier, perhaps even during his sojourn with his father in Chiang-su.2
    • The use of vasoconstrictors to increase the sojourn of local anesthetics at the site of infiltration continues […]3
  • A temporary residence.
    • ✤ Synonym: (abroad, obsolete) peregrination
    • ✤ *Though long detain’d/In that obscure sojourn *4

Verb

sojourn (third-person singular simple present sojourns, present participle sojourning, simple past and past participle sojourned)

  • (intransitive) To reside somewhere temporarily, especially as a guest or lodger.
    • Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.5
    • The soldiers first assembled at Newcastle, […] and here sojourned three days.6

Etymology

From Middle English sojourne (noun) and sojournen (verb), from Old French sojor, sojorner (modern séjour, séjourner), from (assumed) Vulgar Latin ﹡subdiurnāre, from Latin sub- (“under, a little over”) + Late Latin diurnus (“lasting for a day”), from Latin dies (“day”).7

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈsɒd͡ʒən/, /ˈsɒd͡ʒɜːn/, /ˈsəʊd͡ʒɜːn/
  • (US) IPA: /ˈsoʊd͡ʒɚn/, (verb alternatively)/soʊˈd͡ʒɝn/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɒdʒə(ɹ)n, -ɒdʒɜː(ɹ)n, -əʊdʒə(ɹ)n, -əʊdʒɜː(ɹ)n

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XLIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 367:

  2. 1978, Timothy C. Wong, edited by William Schultz, Wu Ching-tzu, Twayne Publishers, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 30:

  3. 2006, Joseph Price Remington, Paul Beringer, Remington: The Science And Practice Of Pharmacy, page 1168:

  4. 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

  5. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 12:30:

  6. a. 1628 (date written), John Hayward, The Life, and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press, and J. Lichfield at Oxford?] for Iohn Partridge, […], published 1630, →OCLC:

  7. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “sojourn”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

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