champaign

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English champayne, also champaigne,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French champaigne (“open country”),^[2][3][5][6] from Late Latin campānia (“level country”),^[7][3][8] the noun use of the feminine singular and neuter plural of campanius, an adjective from Latin campus (“level field, plain”).^[9][10] In Latin Campānia was first the name of the rich, level province of Italy south-west of the Tiber, later called the Campagna de Roma; by Gregory of Tours, about 575, it was used for many similar tracts and as a common noun.^[2][5] The OED notes that English took the central French form, not the Norman and northern French campaigne, and compares Italian campagna, Spanish campaña and Portuguese campanha.^[2] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1136–37, already meaning both open country and a battlefield.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

An expanse of level, open country, a plain: about 1400, in the alliterative Morte Arthure.^[2][3][5] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1350–1400.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From an open plain the word came to name flat, open country as a kind of landscape (about 1420) and the champaign, the open country as against mountains and woods, or the country as against the town (1483).^[2] In the 16th and 17th centuries it also meant unenclosed common land;^[2] from 1600 it also meant the open field where armies fought, hence a battlefield (1614).^[2][6] In the 16th century a variant champion or champian arose, more frequent than champaign in the 17th century,^[2][9][13] and in the 17th century the modern French form campagne was taken in and became the separate military word campaign.^[2] Milton used it figuratively in 1641 for a field of view or of research.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a flat open country", with an example from Spenser.^[14] The word is now chiefly literary.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – an expanse of level, open country, in Morte Arthure.^[2][3]
• c. 1420 – flat, open country as a kind of land.^[2]
• c. 1430 – adjective, of the open, unenclosed country (obsolete).^[2]
• 1483 – the champaign, the open country, in Caxton.^[2]
• 1555 – unenclosed common land (obsolete by 1657).^[2]
• 1575 – adjective, level and open, in Gascoigne.^[2]
• 1600 – open country as the scene of military operations (obsolete).^[2]
• 1614 – a battlefield, in Raleigh (obsolete).^[2]
• 1641 – figurative, a field of view or research, in Milton.^[2]
• 1656 – an open, level expanse.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An expanse of level, open country; a plain: The road ran straight across the champaign.^[7][4][6][2]
2. Any open expanse, as of the sea.^[4][2]
3. (archaic) A battlefield, or open country where armies fight.^[4][6][2]

Adjective

1. Level and open, like a champaign.^[4][2]

Related words

• champagne
• campaign
• Campagna
• champion
• camp
• campus
• scamp

Usage notes

The OED notes that alliterative verse already shows a pronunciation with /tʃ-/ and the stress on the first syllable in the 14th century, and that English poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson and Browning stressed it so; in the 19th century some speakers stressed the second syllable and said it like champagne, as if it came from modern French, and Webster and Worcester gave only that pronunciation.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.