Other forms: rejoined, rejoining, rejoins
To rejoin is to join something again after leaving. Rejoin the group, rejoin the motorway, rejoin the party.
It covers going back to an organisation, a path or a group of people: rejoin the club, rejoin the others, rejoin the main road. There is a second and unrelated sense, stressed differently, meaning to reply sharply — and rejoinder, the noun for a sharp reply, comes from that one. Note that both senses go back to the same French joindre, to join.
1verbrejoinTo join something again after leaving.
“After a year abroad, she rejoined her old team and played in the final.”
2verbreplyTo reply sharply.
“"That's not my problem," she rejoined coldly.”
rejoin is a joining again.
Middle French rejoindre is re- plus joindre, to join. The sense of replying comes from law, where a rejoinder was the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's reply.
Proto-Indo-European
*yewg-
Middle French
rejoin-
Middle English
rejoynen
English, today
rejoin
Built from
From Middle English rejoynen, partly from Middle French rejoin- (stem of rejoindre, from re- (“again”) + joindre (“to join”)) and partly from re- + joinen. by surface analysis, re- + join. a doublet of rejoinder.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA