To adjourn means to pause or end a formal meeting, with plans to continue it later or to close it completely. When a judge adjourns a trial, court stops for the day and everyone returns tomorrow. When Congress adjourns for the summer, lawmakers leave Washington and won't meet again until fall.

The word appears most often in official settings like courts, legislatures, clubs, and committee meetings. A student council president might adjourn a meeting after finishing the agenda. A courtroom drama might show a judge banging a gavel and declaring, “This court is adjourned until 9 a.m. Monday.”

Adjourn implies more formality than simply stopping or pausing. You wouldn't say your family “adjourned” dinner when someone got up for more water. But when a group has been meeting officially, discussing business, and following rules about who speaks when, that group adjourns rather than just “ends” or “stops.”

Adjourning sine die (Latin for “without day”) means a meeting ends with no set date to meet again.