adjourn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ajournen, also ajornen and adjournen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ajorner, also ajurner, adjurner and ajourner,^[5][3][6] and Old French ajorner,^{[7][4][8][9][10][11]} now ajourner.^[5][11] The verb comes from the phrase a jorn (“to a stated day”), in full a jorn nomé (“to an appointed day”),^{[8][4][9][10][11][12]} from a- (“to”), from Latin ad-,^[7][8][5] and jor (“day”), also jorn,^[5][4][8] from Late Latin diurnum (“day”),^{[7][3][13][12]} the neuter of Latin diurnus (“daily”),^[3][8][11] from diēs (“day”),^[7][4][13] from Proto-Indo-European *dyeu- (“to shine”).^[4][7] The summoning sense followed Medieval Latin adiornō (“to call out against a given date”), also adiurnō, recorded from 800,^[5] and Klein and Skeat start the French verb from a form adjurnō.^[14][15] The -d- of the English spelling copies the occasional French form adjourner, and has been kept since the 16th century;^{[8][4][5][14]} Etymonline calls it unetymological, because the compound is apparently not of Latin formation.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To dissolve the meeting of a court or parliament so that it continues at another time or place: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[5] Barnhart starts before 1338, with assigning a day, especially for appearing in court,^[8] and Etymonline starts in the mid-14th century, with fixing a day.^[4] Anglo-Norman has the verb from 1121–25, for postponing, setting a day and also dawning.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes how the word has turned from appointing a day into postponing or suspending, and puts this down to human nature.^[12] The idea was one of setting a date for meeting again,^[4] and the French verb first meant to summon someone to a court hearing (about 1170) and to fix a date for a hearing or other event (end of the 12th century).^[5] The sense of dissolving a meeting is found in Anglo-Norman by 1346, and French later took it back from English, in 1672.^[5] The general sense of putting something off is recorded in English from about 1425,^[5] with no parallel in French until 1794,^[5] and a meeting could adjourn on its own, intransitively, from 1495.^[5] Johnson (1755) still called "to put off to another day, naming the time" a term of courts and parliaments, quoting Shakespeare's Henry VIII: "That we adjourn this court to further day".^[16] Moving as a group to another place, recorded from 1649, is unknown in French;^[5] Etymonline calls it colloquial, and Collins informal.^[4][13]

Timeline

• c. 1170 – Old French ajorner, to summon someone to a court hearing.^[5]
• before 1325 – to dissolve a court or parliament so that it continues at another time or place.^[5]
• before 1338 – to assign a day, especially a day to appear in court.^[8] The OED's first quotation for summoning someone to court is from a manuscript of about 1430 of Chaucer's A.B.C.^[5]
• c. 1425 – to postpone or defer, in Lydgate's Troy Book.^[5] Barnhart dates it to 1427.^[8]
• 1495 – intransitive, of an assembly, to suspend its sitting.^[5]
• before 1626 – reflexive, of an assembly, in Bacon.^[5]
• 1649 – of a group of people, to go to another place, especially to rest or relax.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a court, parliament or other assembly, to close a sitting until a later time or for good, or to bring such a sitting to a close: The judge adjourned the hearing until Monday.^[13][3][5]
2. To postpone or defer something: The committee adjourned its decision on the budget.^[13][3][5]
3. (informal) Of a group, to move to another place, often to relax: After the toast the guests adjourned to the garden.^[13][5]
4. (informal) To stop work.^[13]
5. (law) To summon a person to appear in court on a set day; to remand a prisoner to a set day.^[5][2] The Shorter Oxford marks this obsolete since the mid 17th century.^[9]

Word family

• adjournment
• readjournment
• readjourn
• adjournal
• adjourner

Related words

• journal
• journey
• sojourn
• diurnal

Usage notes

Weekley remarked that to adjourn sine die is strictly speaking a bull, the verb having originally meant to fix a day for a person.^[17] Dictionary.com lists adjourn with adjoin as a commonly confused pair.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House