journal [LME] In the Middle Ages a journal was a book listing the times of daily prayers. It comes via French jour from the late Latin word diurnalis ‘belonging to a day’. The use of the word to mean a personal diary, which in theory you filled in every day, comes in at the beginning of the 17th century. Journal meaning ‘a daily newspaper’ is first recorded from the early 18th century, but must be earlier as journalist, in the modern sense, dates from the late 17th century. The earliest senses of journey in Middle English were ‘a day, a day’s travel, a day’s work’. Like journal, the word comes ultimately from the Latin dies ‘day’. Today we use journeyman [LME] as a term for a worker or sports player who is reliable but not outstanding. This goes back to the Middle Ages when it was the name for someone who had served his apprenticeship but was not yet a master of his craft. He still worked for someone else, and got his name from the fact that he was paid by the day.