Word of the Day for Wednesday August 10, 2005 sojourn \SOH-juhrn; so-JURN\, intransitive verb: To stay as a temporary resident; to dwell for a time. noun: A temporary stay. Though he has sojourned in Southwold, wandered in Walberswick, dabbled in Dunwich, ambled through Aldeburgh and blundered through Blythburgh, Smallweed has never set foot in Orford. --Smallweed, "The trouble with hope," [1]The Guardian, April 14, 2001 Yet he is now an accomplished student and speaker of English, a literary editor and television producer, someone who has sojourned in Paris and attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. --William H. Gass, "Family and Fable in Galilee," [2]New York Times, April 17, 1988 As chance would have it, Degas's five-month sojourn in New Orleans coincided with an extraordinarily contentious period in the stormy political history of the city. --Christopher Benfey, [3]Degas in New Orleans During that long sojourn in Sligo, from 1870 to 1874, he had lessons from a much loved nursemaid, Ellie Connolly; later he received coaching in spelling and dictation from Esther Merrick, a neighbour who lived in the Sexton's house by St John's, and who read him quantities of verse. --R. F. Foster, [4]W.B. Yeats: A Life _________________________________________________________ Sojourn comes from Old French sojorner, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin subdiurnare, from Latin sub-, "under, a little over" + Late Latin diurnus, "lasting for a day," from Latin dies, "day." References 1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ 2. http://www.nytimes.com/ 3. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0520218183/ref=nosim/lexico 4. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0192880853/ref=nosim/lexico Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=sojourn