Word.ws English Dictionary

camp

/ˈkæmp//ˈkeə̯mp/

camp noun: an outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other simple structures. Also the clipping of campus.

Noun (1)

camp (countable and uncountable, plural camps)

  1. An outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other simple structures.
    • Near-synonyms: campsite, campground, encampment
    • There's a big camp in the woods northwest of here. It's popular with hikers and bushcrafters.
  2. An organised event, often taking place in tents or temporary accommodation.
    • I met my best friend last summer at camp. She lives in Albany and plays the clarinet.
    • He used to go to summer camp every alternate year.
  3. A base of a military group, not necessarily temporary.
    • Near-synonym: encampment
    • Signs of enemy recon were found near their camp last week.
    Synonyms:
    encampment
  4. A place of politically motivated confinement in outdoorsy conditions, usually also leading to slave labor and death.
    • Near-synonyms: concentration camp, labor camp, reeducation camp, gulag, stalag, prison camp
    • Some say they'll round us all up into camps, but if they come for us, we'll take some out with us, on our way out.
  5. A single hut or shelter.
    • a hunter’s camp
  6. (collective) The company or body of persons encamped.
    • The camp broke up with the confusion of a flight.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter IX, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
  7. (collective) A group of people with the same strong ideals or political leanings.
    • Near-synonyms: faction, ingroup
    • She's in the camp that speaks as if all vaccines were poisons.
    Synonyms:
    faction, ingroup
  8. (obsolete) An army.
    • My Campe is like to Iulius Cæſars Hoſte,
      That neuer fought but had the victorie:c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
  9. (Australia) A site where kangaroos and other macropods rest during the day.
    • ‘We must have sat down on a kangaroo camp when we boiled the billy at midday,’ I remarked irritably. Laurie laughed while I burned three kangaroo ticks from my legs.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 82
  10. (slang) Any prison or prison camp.
    • Lantana is a sweet camp. It's an old hospital that has been converted to a drug treatment center for prisoners.2009, Nick Chandler, Jeanette Billings, Determined to Change: The Autobiography of Nick Chandler, page 184
  11. (British, India) Anywhere that a colonist stayed when away from their permanent residence; such places collectively.
    • Then the Rains came, when no one could go into camp, and the Narkarra Road was washed away by the Kasun River, and in the cup-like pastures of Kashima the cattle waded knee-deep.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “A Wayside Comedy”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 62
  12. (obsolete) Conflict; battle.
  13. An online game, in some cases roleplay, in which people compete against each other, usually in a structure similar to that of a competition show.
  14. (collective) A colony or other group of bats.
    • The house owner got panic after seeing the camp of bats.2019 December 23, Speed News Nest, “It's weird! 1700 bats invade flat and make their love nest”, in Catch News, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2026
    • Her mouth opens so wide, a camp of bats could fly in.2022, Lystra Rose, The Upwelling

Verb (1)

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.
    • A few hours before sundown we camped at a small playa lake sunk beneath the level of the grass.2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 73
  2. To set up a camp.
  3. (transitive) To afford rest or lodging for.
    • Had our great palace the capacity / To camp this host, we all would sup together.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  4. (intransitive) To stay in an advantageous location.
    • Some players like to camp next to a power-up's spawning point.
    • ‘So things have gone all right with a little watchfulness and the help of old Cockeye here and her buck. They camp just there, right close to the hut, and have been real faithful these last two years.’1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 243
  5. (transitive) 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. (Australia, intransitive) Of stock animals, to assemble or rest temporarily at a particular place.
    • The bullocks camped in front on the big fire, with the black line of trees facing them.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 10
  7. (intransitive, obsolete) To fight; contend in battle or in any kind of contest; to strive with others in doing anything; compete.
    • Aristotle affirmeth that Rauens will gather together on sides, and campe and fight for victorie.1562, Leigh, The Accedens of Armory ː
  8. (intransitive, obsolete) To wrangle; argue.

Noun (2)

camp (uncountable)

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

Adjective

camp (comparative camper, superlative campest)

  1. Theatrical; making exaggerated gestures.
  2. Ostentatiously flamboyant or effeminate.
    • 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[…]2007, David Rothwell, Dictionary of Homonyms, Wordsworth Editions, →ISBN, page 88
    • 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.2014, Sarah Lotz, The Three, Hachette UK, →ISBN
  3. Intentionally tasteless or vulgar; self-parodying.
    • 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.”2002, Georges-Claude Guilbert, Madonna as Postmodern Myth, McFarland, →ISBN, page 123
    • 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.2024 April 5, Alexis Petridis, “Abba, cabaret and smug marionettes: the 1974 Eurovision song contest reviewed!”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Verb (2)

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

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

Noun (3)

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. (slang) An electoral constituency of the legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands that comprises all territory more than 3.5 miles from the spire of the Christ Church Cathedral in Stanley.
  3. (slang) The pampas, which are the vast grassy areas situated in the rural areas beyond Argentine cities such as Buenos Aires.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Camp

Camp (countable and uncountable, plural Camps)

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Campbell.
  2. A surname.
  3. A village on the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland.
  4. An unincorporated community in Pike County, Ohio, United States.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Camp County

Proper noun (2) capitalized: CAMP

CAMP

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Central Atlantic magmatic province.

Noun (4) capitalized: CAMP

CAMP (plural CAMPs)

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of continuous airworthiness maintenance program
    Synonyms:
    continuous airworthiness maintenance program

Noun (5) capitalized: cAMP

cAMP

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of cyclic AMP.

Also used as

camp is also the clipping of campus.

camp is also the misconstruction of clamp.

camp is also the ellipsis of corpse camp.

camp meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

camp in Hindi

outdoor place
शिविर śivir, कैंप ka͠ip

camp in Marathi

शिबीर, छावणी, शिबिर

camp in Urdu

outdoor place
کَیمْپ kaimp

camp in Bengali

outdoor place
শিবির śibir
More languagesFewer languages
camp in Kannada
ಶಿಬಿರ, ಕ್ಯಾಂಪ್
camp in Odia
ଶିବିର, କ୍ଯ଼ାମ୍ପ୍
camp in Nepali
शिविर, क्याम्प
camp in Tagalog
limpuyok, maghigpo
camp in Arabic
مُخَيِّم muḵayyim
camp in Malay
kem
camp in Indonesian
kamp
camp in Thai
ค่าย kâai, แคมป์ kɛ́m, พักแรม
camp in Myanmar
စခန်း ca.hkan:
Kashmiri
کَمپ kamp

Examples of camp in a sentence

  • I met my girlfriend last summer at camp. You wouldn't know her — she lives in Canada.
  • Ahn Myong-Chol was a prison guard at Camp 22 in Hoeryong and a driver at the camps.2013 June 18, Esther Felden, “Hell on earth”, in Deutsche Welle, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2015:
  • The camp of bats then settled on the ceiling, hanging upside down with their beady eyes shining like stars in the torchlight.2013, T.D. Pierce, Captain Wilder Part One, Friesen Press, page 44:
  • 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.1962, Coach & Athlete, page 18:
  • Why would any Hollywood studio encourage a film's transformation into camp, in effect joining in the mockery of its own product?1996 March 31, Trip Gabriel, “Showgirls' Crawls Back As High Camp at Midnight”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

All 40 example sentences with camp

Synonyms of camp

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of camp

Forms of camp

Noun
pluralcamps
pluralCAMPs
Verb
third-person singular presentcamps
present participlecamping
past participlecamped
pastcamped
Adjective
comparativecamper
superlativecampest
Proper noun
pluralCamps

Past tense of camp: camped

Plural of camp: camps

Origin of camp

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.

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

From Spanish campo (“countryside”).

Words formed from camp

Phrases with camp

97 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with camp

8 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about camp

What does camp mean?
Camp means an outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other simple structures.
What is camp in Hindi?
Camp in Hindi is शिविर (śivir), कैंप (ka͠ip). See Camp meaning in Hindi.
How do you use camp in a sentence?
I met my girlfriend last summer at camp. You wouldn't know her — she lives in Canada.
What part of speech is camp?
Camp can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce camp?
Camp is pronounced /ˈkæmp/.
What is the plural of camp?
The plural of camp is camps.

Words near camp in the dictionary

  1. camous
  2. camout
  3. camouts
  4. camoys
  5. Camoëns
  6. camp
  7. Camp 1
  8. Camp 2
  9. Camp 3
  10. Camp 4
  11. Camp 5

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: camp (page history and authors); Camp (page history and authors); CAMP (page history and authors); cAMP (page history and authors); camp (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); camp (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); camp (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); camp (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-us-camp.ogg.

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