camp
Forms
- Plural
- camps
- present (v1)
- camp
- past (v2)
- camped
- past participle (v3)
- camped
- present participle
- camping
- 3rd person singular
- camps
Definitions
1.An outdoor place acting as temporary accommodation in tents or other simple structures.
- 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.
- He used to go to summer camp every alternate year.
- I met my best friend last summer at camp. She lives in Albany and plays the clarinet.
- I met my girlfriend last summer at camp. You wouldn't know her, she lives in Canada.
3.A base of a military group, not necessarily temporary.
- Signs of enemy recon were found near their camp last week.
4.A place of politically motivated confinement in outdoorsy conditions, usually also leading to slave labor and death.
- 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.
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.
2.To afford rest or lodging for.
- Had our great palace the capacity / To camp this host, we all would sup together.
3.To stay in an advantageous location.
- Some players like to camp next to a power-up's spawning point.
- 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.
- ‘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.’
4.To set up a camp.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1419
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Uncommon
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
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.