Session

Session

Noun · /ˈseʃən/ · a period devoted to a particular activity

Definition

A session is a period of time set aside for a specific purpose or activity — a meeting, a sitting, a stretch of work or practice. Parliament holds sessions. Courts sit in session. Musicians record in sessions. Therapists and clients meet for sessions. Programmers have browser sessions. In all these uses, a session is a defined block of time with a clear beginning and end, dedicated to one activity or context. The word carries no judgement about the activity itself — a gaming session and a court session are both simply sessions.

Origin

Session comes from Latin sessio, meaning a sitting, derived from sedere — to sit. The idea is of formally sitting down together for a shared purpose. Old French session passed the word into English in the fourteenth century, where it was initially used in legal and parliamentary contexts: the sessions of a court, the session of Parliament. Over centuries it broadened into every domain where people or processes gather for a defined period: music recording sessions in the twentieth century, computing sessions as technology developed. The legal meaning remains in expressions like quarter sessions — historic local courts — and in the phrase in session, meaning formally convened.