adjournment

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ajournement, also adjornament,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ajornement, also Middle French adjournement and ajournement,^[1][5][6] from ajorner and -ment.^[1][3] The verb adjourn goes back to the phrase Old French à jorn (“to a stated day”),^[4][5][7] formed from à (“to”) and jorn (“day”),^[4] from Late Latin diurnum,^[7][8] from Latin diurnus (“daily”),^[5][4][7] from diēs (“day”),^[4][7] from Proto-Indo-European *dyeu- (“to shine”).^[4] The -d- has been explained in two ways: the OED sees French forms remodelled after ad-,^[1] and Barnhart a rare Middle French spelling kept in English since the 1500s,^[5] while Etymonline calls it unetymological, added in English in the mistaken expectation of a Latin origin.^[4] The OED compares Medieval Latin adiornamentum and Italian aggiornamento.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The suspending or postponing of the proceedings of a court or assembly: in the Rolls of Parliament, dated 1445–6 by the OED^[1] and 1444 by the Middle English Dictionary and Barnhart: “Notwithstandynge the ajournement of your Courtes”.^[2][5] Dictionary.com's 1635–45 is much later.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In French the noun first meant the fixing of a date, from the mid 13th century and often in legal contexts,^[1] and it also meant daybreak in Anglo-Norman, a sense dated to the mid 12th century by the OED and to about 1170 by the Anglo-Norman Dictionary.^[1][10] Etymonline adds “summons to appear in court” for Old French.^[4] Anglo-Norman already used it for proceedings being adjourned, and that sense returned to modern French from English in 1672.^[1] This matches the verb, which originally meant to appoint a day and came to mean to postpone or suspend.^[7] The English record begins with the legal use; from 1649 the noun also named the period during which a court or trial stands adjourned.^[1] Johnson (1755) still defined it as “an assignment of a day, or a putting off till another day”, and quoted Cowell on the adjournment in eyre, the appointment of a day when the justices in eyre meant to sit again.^[11] Webster (1828) listed the act, the closing of a session of a public body until a stated day or without one, and the interval.^[12]

Timeline

• 1445–6 – the act of adjourning a court, parliament or similar body.^[1][2] The Middle English Dictionary and Barnhart give 1444.^[2][5]
• 1649 – the state of being adjourned; the period during which a court or trial is adjourned.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of adjourning a court, meeting or assembly, or an instance of it: The judge granted an adjournment of the hearing until Monday.^[3][13][14]
2. The state of being adjourned, or the interval it lasts: They met again after a two-week adjournment.^[3][1][13]
3. adjournment debate: in the House of Commons, a debate on the motion that the House adjourn, often used to raise other matters.^[6]

Word family

• nonadjournment
• readjournment

Related words

• adjourn
• diurnal
• aggiornamento

Usage notes

Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary on the difference from recess: an adjournment is the act by which an assembly suspends its session under its own authority, or the time of that suspension, whereas a recess is a customary suspension, as during holidays, and popularly any brief pause in business.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West