journal

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noun jour·nal \ ˈjər-nᵊl \

Updated on: 26 Jul 2017

Definition of journal

1 a :a daily newspaper —usually used in titles

The Wall Street Journal

b :a periodical dealing especially with matters of current interest

an academic journal

—often used in titles

The Journal of the American Medical Association

2 a :a record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use :diary

b :a record of current transactions; especially :a book of original entry in double-entry bookkeeping

c :an account of day-to-day events

d :a record of transactions kept by a deliberative or legislative body

e :log 3

f :log 4

3 :the part of a rotating shaft, axle, roll, or spindle that turns in a bearing

See journal defined for English-language learners

See journal defined for kids

Examples of journal in a Sentence

I've been keeping a journal for several years.
She records her dreams in a journal.

Recent Examples of journal from the Web

And in this satire by Jaclyn Backhaus based on the journals of a 19th-century explorer, there are no men to be found.

— dan kelly, kansascity, "KC events Aug. 31-Sept. 6: American Royal barbecue, Irish fest, Santa-Cali-Gon Days," 29 Aug. 2017
This essay first appeared in Crazyhorse, a long-running biannual print journal of fiction, poetry, and formally inventive nonfiction, published by the College of Charleston in South Carolina.

— aaron gilbreath, Longreads, "Reflections of an Accidental Florist," 28 Aug. 2017
After their methods and findings withstood the scrutiny of peer review, the researchers published their results in the journal Environmental Research Letters this week.

— eric levitz, Daily Intelligencer, "Exxon Misled the Public About Climate Change for 40 Years, Study Says," 23 Aug. 2017
Klug grew up in Cheviot and is the author of two other books and many chapters and journal articles in the field of education.

— Cincinnati.com, "Cheviot native, UC grad Beverly Klug publishes new book," 3 Aug. 2017
The team’s findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

— emily matchar, Smithsonian, "New Artificial Spider Silk: Stronger Than Steel and 98 Percent Water," 27 July 2017
The median funding level for PIs publishing in journals with lower impact factors—such as PLOS ONE and the Journal of Biological Chemistry—was not much lower, about the 70th percentile, but the distribution of funding brackets was more diverse.

— maggie kuo, Science | AAAS, "Relatively few NIH grantees get lion’s share of agency’s funding," 18 July 2017
In October 2016 the White House noted in a report that China had overtaken America in the number of published journal articles on deep learning, a branch of AI.

— The Economist, "The algorithm kingdomChina may match or beat America in AI," 15 July 2017
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, examined 88 women (to note, a pretty small sample group) with no health issues that would impact their hormone levels over the course of two menstrual cycles.

— lilly dancyger, Glamour, "Do Our Brains Really Work Differently When We're on Our Periods?," 13 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'journal.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of journal

Middle English, service book containing the day hours, from Anglo-French jurnal, from jurnal, adjective, daily, from Latin diurnalis, from diurnus of the day, from dies day — more at deity

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

See Words from the same year

journal Synonyms

Synonyms

book, bulletin, diurnal, gazette, mag, magazine, newspaper, organ, paper, periodical, rag, review, serial, zine

Other Publishing Terms

annotate, dreadful, emend, expurgate, factoid, jump, lobster shift, redaction, referee

Financial Definition of JOURNAL

journal

noun

What It Is

In the finance world, journal is short for journal entry. It is also short for The Wall Street Journal.

How It Works

Journal entries are records of individual financial transactions in a company's accounting system. Due to the standards of double-entry bookkeeping, journal entries typically involve a debit to one or more accounts and a credit to one or more accounts in the same amount. For example, the journal entry for the purchase of a $20,000 fleet vehicle might reflect a $20,000 increase in assets and a corresponding $20,000 decrease in cash.

Why It Matters

Journal entries are the heart and soul of accounting. Accountants must know how to make them correctly so that a company's financial transactions are recorded accurately and in turn convey correct information to shareholders, analysts and other stakeholders. When the books don't balance or there is an error in the numbers, accountants often go back to the journal entries to find out what went wrong. In this way, journal entries are a sort of diary for companies.

Source: Investing Answers

JOURNAL Defined for English Language Learners

journal

play

noun

Definition of journal for English Language Learners

: a book in which you write down your personal experiences and thoughts
: a newspaper
: a magazine that reports on things of special interest to a particular group of people