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
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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."