camp

• IPA^(key): /kæmp/
  • (General American, Canada, /æ/ raising) IPA^(key): [kʰɛəmp] ~ [kʰeəmp]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æmp

From Middle English kampe (“battlefield, open space”), from Old English camp (“battle, contest, battlefield, open space”), from Proto-West Germanic *kamp (“open field where military exercises are held, level plain”), from Latin campus (“open field, level plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂emp- (“to bend; crooked”). Reinforced circa 1520 by Middle French can, camp (“place where an army lodges temporarily”), from Old Northern French camp, from the same Latin (whence also French champ from Old French). Cognate with Old High German champf (“battle, struggle”) (German Kampf), Old Norse kapp (“battle”), Old High German hamf (“paralysed, maimed, mutilated”). Doublet of campus and champ.

The verb is from Middle English campen, from Old English campian, compian (“to fight, war against”), from Proto-West Germanic *kampōn (“to fight, do battle”), from *kamp (“field, battlefield, battle”), see above. Cognate with Dutch kampen, German kämpfen (“to struggle”), Danish kæmpe, Swedish kämpa.

camp (countable and uncountable, plural camps)

1. An outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other temporary structures.
2. An organised event, often taking place in tents or temporary accommodation.
3. A base of a military group, not necessarily temporary.
4. A concentration camp; gulag.
   • 2013 June 18, Esther Felden, “Hell on earth”, in Deutsche Welle‎, archived from the original on 22 June 2015‎:

     Mr. Ahn Myong-Chol was a prison guard at Camp 22 in Hoeryong and a driver at the camps. He was there between 1990 and 1994. He is the one who reported that prisoners had been used for human experimentation inside the camps.

5. A single hut or shelter.

   a hunter's camp

6. The company or body of persons encamped.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 9, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The camp broke up with the confusion of a flight.

7. A group of people with the same strong ideals or political leanings.
8. (obsolete) An army.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

     My Campe is like to Iulius Cæſars Hoſte,
     That neuer fought but had the victorie:

9. (uncommon) Campus
10. (informal) A summer camp.
11. (prison slang) A prison.
    • 2009, Nick Chandler, Jeanette Billings, Determined to Change: The Autobiography of Nick Chandler, page 184:

      Lantana is a sweet camp. It's an old hospital that has been converted to a drug treatment center for prisoners.

12. (agriculture) A mound of earth in which potatoes and other vegetables are stored for protection against frost

    Synonyms: burrow, pie

13. (obsolete) Conflict; battle.

• campus
• champerty

camp (third-person singular simple present camps, present participle camping, simple past and past participle camped)

1. To live in a tent or similar temporary accommodation.

   We're planning to camp in the field until Sunday.

2. To set up a camp.
3. (transitive) To afford rest or lodging for.
   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene viii]:

     Had our great palace the capacity / To camp this host, we all would sup together.

4. (intransitive, sports, video games) To stay in an advantageous location.

   Some players like to camp next to a power-up's spawning point.

   • 1962, Coach & Athlete, page 18:

     Yet, even without the three second rule, where your big man could camp underneath and take those delightful “garbage” shots, there was little or no pivot offense, no cutting off the bucket.

5. (transitive, video games) To stay beside (something) to gain an advantage.

   The easiest way to win on this map is to camp the double damage.

   Go and camp the flag for the win.

6. (transitive, video games) Short for corpse camp.
7. (intransitive, obsolete) To fight; contend in battle or in any kind of contest; to strive with others in doing anything; compete.
   • 1562, Leigh, The Accedens of Armory ː

     Aristotle affirmeth that Rauens will gather together on sides, and campe and fight for victorie.

8. (intransitive, obsolete) To wrangle; argue.

• cample
• camp out
• spawn camp

Unknown. Suggested origins include the 17th century French word camper (“to put oneself in a pose”),[1] an assumed dialectal English word *camp or *kemp (“rough, uncouth”) and a derivation from camp (n.)[2] Believed to be from Polari, otherwise obscure.[3]

camp (uncountable)

1. An affected, exaggerated or intentionally tasteless style.
   • 1985 September 2, Joe Klein, quoting Douglas S. Cramer, “The Real Star of ‘Dynasty’”, in New York, page 34:

     We walk a fine line, just this side of camp. Careful calculations are made. We sense that while it might be wonderful for Krystle and Alexis to have a catfight in a koi pond, it would be inappropriate for Joan to smack Linda with a koi.

   • 1996 March 31, Trip Gabriel, “Showgirls' Crawls Back As High Camp at Midnight”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Why would any Hollywood studio encourage a film's transformation into camp, in effect joining in the mockery of its own product? MGM declined to comment.

camp (comparative camper, superlative campest)

1. Theatrical; making exaggerated gestures.
2. (of a man) Ostentatiously effeminate.[4]
   • 2007, David Rothwell, Dictionary of Homonyms, Wordsworth Editions, →ISBN, page 88:

     More recently the word has become colloquial English for either implying that someone is a homosexual (‘he's very camp’), or for describing rather outre behaviour […]

   • 2014, Sarah Lotz, The Three, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     And to be honest, in the illustration Mr Tumnus does look as camp as fuck with his little scarf tied jauntily around his neck. I suppose it isn't outside the realms of possibility that he'd just been off cottaging with some centaurs in the forest. God.

3. Intentionally tasteless or vulgar, self-parodying.
   • 2002, Georges-Claude Guilbert, Madonna as Postmodern Myth, McFarland, →ISBN, page 123:

     In Saturday Night Live, Madonna also unsurprisingly played Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, and a Joan Collins clone, all in a very camp way. As John Dean writes: “U.S. rock has a ruling camp queen with Madonna.”

   • 2024 April 5, Alexis Petridis, “Abba, cabaret and smug marionettes: the 1974 Eurovision song contest reviewed!”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Here is Eurovision from a time before anyone watched it for camp value – you can’t imagine any gay bar in 1974 clearing its schedules to screen this; a Eurovision that takes itself rather seriously, a brief appearance by the Wombles notwithstanding.

• camp it up
• campy

camp (third-person singular simple present camps, present participle camping, simple past and past participle camped)

1. To behave in a camp manner; camp it up.
   • 1988 April 9, Gordon Gottlieb, “The Urban Gay Camp and Croon”, in Gay Community News, page 11:

     Oster and his his two co-stars, Jamie MacKenzie and Bill Martel, boogie and bop, sway and swish, camp and croon through tightly worked production numbers addressing a range of serious (and not so serious) issues that middle class, urban gay men come up against.

• → Finnish: camp
• → French: camp
• → Spanish: camp

From Spanish campo (“countryside”).

camp (countable and uncountable, plural camps)

1. (slang, Falkland Islands) The areas of the Falkland Islands situated outside the capital and largest settlement, Stanley.
2. An electoral constituency of the legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands that composes of all territory more than 3.5 miles from the spire of the Christ Church Cathedral in Stanley.

• aide-de-camp

• CAPM, CPAM

Inherited from Latin campus (compare Occitan camp, French champ, Spanish campo), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂emp- (“to bend, curve”).

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈkam]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencian) [ˈkamp]

• Audio

  (file)

camp m (plural camps)

1. field (open area of land)

   Synonym: terreny

2. camp (temporary outdoor accommodation)

   Synonym: campament

3. field of study, discipline

   Synonym: disciplina

4. (physics) field

• campanya
• campestre
• campió

• “camp” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From English camp.

camp

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) camp (organised event); summer camp

• ocamp

From English camp.

camp

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) camp (effeminate)

• Bauer, Robert S. (2021) ABC Cantonese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, →ISBN, page 538

Probably borrowed from French camp.

camp m (plural camps) (ORB)

1. camp

• campar

• camp in DicoFranPro: Dictionnaire Français/Francoprovençal – on dicofranpro.llm.umontreal.ca
• camp in Lo trèsor Arpitan – on arpitan.eu

Probably from a Norman or Picard word equivalent to French champ (itself inherited from Old French champ and Latin), from Old Northern French camp, from Latin campus, or alternatively from Occitan camp, Old Occitan camp, possibly Italian campo. Doublet of campus and champ.

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃/
• Homophones: Caen, quand, quant

camp m (plural camps)

1. camp (An outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other temporary structures.)

   Il a dressé son camp de l'autre côté de la rivière. ― He has erected his camp on the other side of the river.

2. camp (Semi-temporary accommodation)

   Un camp de concentration. ― A concentration camp.

3. camp (A base of a military group, not necessarily temporary)

   Les camps ennemis. ― The enemy camps.

4. camp (A group of people with the same ideals or political leanings, strongly supported.)

   Ce pays est partagé en deux camps. ― This country is divided into two camps.

5. camp, summer camp

   Un camp de vacances. ― A summer camp. (idiomatic; French usage does not specify a season)

• camper
• campement
• camping
• champ

très camp!

Borrowed from English camp.

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃p/, /kamp/

camp (invariable)

1. camp (Intentionally tasteless or vulgar, self-parodying, affected, exaggerated)

   Une folle camp ne peut jamais en faire trop.

   (please add an English translation of this usage example)

camp m (uncountable)

1. campness; An affected, exaggerated or intentionally tasteless style

   La tactique des Sœurs dans la lutte contre le sida repose sur une stratégie politique : une utilisation du camp, une réappropriation revendiquée de l’efféminement, de la visibilité homosexuelle et de la follitude qui visent à désarmer les injonctions morales pesant sur la sexualité – sociales, religieuses, liées au sexe, au genre, aux pratiques sexuelles…

• follitude

• “camp”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Old English campian.

camp

1. Alternative form of campen

From Old Norse kampr.

camp

1. Alternative form of kempe (“shaggy”)

• champ

From Old Northern French camp (compare Old French champ), from Latin campus, from Proto-Indo-European *kamp- (“to bend; crooked”). Compare French champ.

camp m (plural camps)

1. (Guernsey) field

From Proto-West Germanic *kamp, from Latin campus.

• IPA^(key): /kɑmp/

camp m

1. combat

• campdōm
• campealdor
• campġefēra
• camphād
• camplīċ
• camprǣden
• campstede
• campung
• campwǣpen
• campwudu
• campwered

camp n

1. an enclosed piece of land

• Middle English: kampe, komp, comp
  • English: camp (see there for further descendants)
  • Scots: camp

camp oblique singular, m (oblique plural cans, nominative singular cans, nominative plural camp)

1. Alternative form of champ (“field”)

From Middle Welsh camp, from Proto-Brythonic *kamp, from Latin campus, from the senses of "field of action, scope, opportunity, or produce of a field". Doublet of Caint (“Kent”) and siampên (“champagne”).

• IPA^(key): /kamp/

camp f (plural campau)

1. feat, accomplishment

   Synonym: gorchest

2. sport, contest

• campfa (“gymnasium, stadium”)
• campus (“excellent, splendid”)
• campwaith (“masterpiece”)
• campwr (“champion”)