Other forms: enjoined, enjoining, enjoins
To enjoin is to order somebody to do something. Enjoin silence, enjoined to attend, enjoin them from acting.
It is formal and legal, and it works both ways confusingly: to enjoin somebody to do something is to order it, and to enjoin them from doing something is to forbid it — an injunction does the second. Note injunction and join, all from the Latin iungere, to join.
1verbenjoinTo order somebody to do something.
“The doctor enjoined him to rest for a month and avoid all heavy lifting.”
enjoin is an ordering.
The Latin is to join onto. To enjoin a duty is to join it onto somebody, like a tag tied to a parcel: it goes where they go until it is done.
hooks ontojoin
Old French enjoindre comes from Latin iniungere, to impose — in plus iungere, to join. Junction and yoke come from the same joining.
Proto-Indo-European
*yewg-
Latin
iniungo — to attach
Old French
enjoindre — to join with
Middle English
enjoinen
English, today
enjoin
From Middle English enjoinen, from Old French enjoindre (“to join with”), from Latin iniungo (“to attach”), a compound of in- (“into” “upon”) and iungo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA