Word.ws English Dictionary

boot camp

boot camp noun: an initial, basic indoctrination, physical fitness training and basic instruction in service-related subjects for new recruits in the armed forces (army, Air Force, navy and Marine Corps).

Noun

boot camp (plural boot camps)

  1. (Canada, US, colloquial) An initial, basic indoctrination, physical fitness training and basic instruction in service-related subjects for new recruits in the armed forces (army, Air Force, navy and Marine Corps).
    Synonyms:
    basic training
  2. (Canada, US) A short, intensive, quasi-military program generally aimed at young offenders as an alternative to a jail term.
  3. (Canada, US, idiomatic) Any short, often intensive course of training.
    • We will institute a boot camp for training the sales force in these new products.

Synonyms of boot camp

Forms of boot camp

pluralboot camps

Origin of boot camp

From boot (“US military slang sense of “new recruit””) + camp.

Questions about boot camp

What does boot camp mean?
Boot camp means an initial, basic indoctrination, physical fitness training and basic instruction in service-related subjects for new recruits in the armed forces (army, Air Force, navy and Marine Corps).
What part of speech is boot camp?
Boot camp is a noun.
What is the plural of boot camp?
The plural of boot camp is boot camps.

Words near boot camp in the dictionary

  1. boot blocks
  2. boot board
  3. boot boards
  4. boot boy
  5. boot boys
  6. boot camp
  7. boot camps
  8. boot catcher
  9. boot catchers
  10. boot closer
  11. boot closers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boot camp (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-boot camp.ogg.

Cite this entry: “boot camp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boot_camp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.