Adjourned

How to spell adjourned

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce adjourned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adjourned mean?

1. verbSuspended or broke off a meeting, court session, or formal proceeding, typically to resume at a later time.

Adjourned in a sentence

• The judge adjourned the trial until the following Monday.

• The board adjourned the meeting once the budget was approved.

Where does adjourned come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Old French verb ajorner, which meant 'to put off to another day' or 'to summon to appear on a fixed day'. That verb was built from the phrase a jorn, literally 'to a day', where jorn descends from the Latin diurnum, meaning 'daily portion' or 'day', the same root that gives us 'journal' and 'journey'. English took it up in the 1300s, originally with the sense of appointing a future day for a meeting to continue. Over time the meaning settled into the familiar idea of suspending proceedings, especially in courts and committees, until a later time. The hidden 'j' that sounds like a soft 'g', plus the silent link back to 'day', is exactly why the spelling surprises writers; remembering the buried word 'journ' (as in journal) helps anchor it.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• journ (day, from Latin diurnus 'daily')
• -ed (past tense)