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camp

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English has two words spelled camp: a place with tents or temporary shelters, from Latin campus “field”, and “affected, exaggerated”, of unknown origin.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /kæmp/[4]

camp1 encampment

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French camp,[5][1] from campo,[5][1] from Latin campus (“open field, level ground; a field of battle”),[5][1] especially the Campus Martius in Rome, used for games and military drill.[3] The direct French descendant of campus is champ “field”.[5] Latin campus was borrowed early into West Germanic as *kampaz, which gave Old English camp “contest, battle, war”, obsolete by the mid-15th century, and German Kampf.[5][1][6] The verb is from Middle French camper.[1][6] It is a doublet of campus.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The place where an army lodges temporarily: 1528.[1][7]

Semantic evolution

A body of troops encamped is from before 1584,[7] and temporary quarters in general, as of travellers, from 1560.[7] Non-military senses developed by the 1550s.[5] The verb, “to encamp”, is from 1543,[1][2] and “to live in tents or rough shelters” from the 1610s, in modern times often for pleasure;[5] camping out is American English from 1834.[5] Campfire is from 1675.[1] Camp meeting, an outdoor religious meeting, is American English from 1809, first of Methodists.[5] Camp follower is from 1810.[5] A body of supporters of a doctrine or cause is from 1871.[5] A summer camp for children and a prison or concentration camp are later senses.[8]

Timeline

  • 1528 – an army's encampment.[1][7]
  • 1543 – verb, to encamp.[1][2]
  • 1560 – temporary quarters.[7]
  • 1610s – to live in tents.[5]
  • 1675 – campfire.[1]
  • 1809 – camp meeting.[5]
  • 1834 – camping out.[5]
  • 1871 – a group of supporters.[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A place where tents or other temporary shelters are put up, as by soldiers or travellers.
  2. A place in the country with simple accommodation and organized activities, as for children.
  3. A group of people who hold the same opinion: the rival camps.
  4. A place where people are held, such as a prison or refugee camp.

Verb

  1. To set up a camp; to live in a tent for a time.
  2. To stay somewhere for a long time: they camped outside the shop.

Word family

  • camper
  • camping
  • campsite
  • campground
  • campfire
  • encamp
  • encampment

camp2 affected

Etymology

It is of unknown origin.[1][2][3] Etymonline suggests a link with mid-17th-century French camper “to portray, pose”, as in se camper “to take a bold, provocative pose”.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Actions or gestures of exaggerated emphasis, at first in homosexual slang: 1909.[1][5]

Semantic evolution

As a noun it meant a homosexual from 1931, and camp it up is also from 1931.[1] Susan Sontag's essay “Notes on 'Camp'” (1964) popularized the sense “amusing for its exaggerated, outmoded or banal style”.[1][5] Campy is from 1959.[1][5]

Timeline

  • 1909 – exaggerated, affected.[1][5]
  • 1931 – noun, and camp it up.[1]
  • 1959 – campy.[1][5]
  • 1964 – Sontag's essay.[1][5]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Deliberately exaggerated and theatrical, especially for comic effect.
  2. Affected and effeminate in manner.

Noun

  1. Exaggerated or deliberately outmoded style, enjoyed for its absurdity.

Verb

  1. camp it up: to behave in a camp way.

Word family

  • campy
  • high camp

Usage notes

In northern English dialect camp also meant “to chat, gossip”, and in East Anglia camp or camp-ball was an old form of football.[9][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  2. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)