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Nov 2, 2023
This week’s theme
Is it a noun, adjective, or verb?

This week’s words
primary
rollercoaster
wimple
sojourn
high-grade

sojourn
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

sojourn

PRONUNCIATION:
(SO-juhrn or so-JUHRN, noun: SO-juhrn)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To stay in a place temporarily.
noun: A temporary stay.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French surjurner (to stay temporarily), from Latin subdiurnare (to spend the day), from sub (under) + diurnum (day). Earliest documented use: 1325, for verb: 1290.

USAGE:
“In his book about his American sojourn, ‘America Against America’, which was published in 1991, Mr Wang noted that if a political system failed to devise a way of transferring power, it would be hard for that country ‘to enjoy enduring and stable political order’.”
Thinker-in-Chief; The Economist (London, UK); Feb 12, 2022.

“Staying in an Airbnb rental may be only marginally less expensive than sojourning in a hotel.”
Erica Alini; Airbnb Prices Comparable to Hotels; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Aug 15, 2022.

See more usage examples of sojourn in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Our cemeteries are full of people who prayed to live. -Annie Laurie Gaylor, freethinker and activist (b. 2 Nov 1955)

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