camp

Theatrical; making exaggerated gestures.

Adjective

  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,...
    • 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...
  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,...
    • 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...

    Coordinate Terms: cheesy hokey corny silly

Origin

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, otherwise obscure.

Forms

camper campest

Synonyms

campy campish

Antonyms

uncamp uncampy

Hyponyms

camp as a row of tents

Derived

camp as a row of tents campish camp it up camply campness campy uncamp

Noun Entry 2

  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.

    Synonyms: campsite campground encampment

  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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Mr. Ahn Myong-Chol was a prison guard at Camp 22 in Hoeryong and a driver at the camps. He was there between 1990 and 1994. He is the one who reported that prisoners had been used for human experimentation inside the...

    Synonyms: concentration camp labor camp reeducation camp gulag stalag prison camp

  5. A single hut or shelter.
    • a hunter’s camp
  6. 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:...
  7. 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

    Coordinate Terms: cult

  8. 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....
  9. 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...
  10. Clipping of campus
  11. 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...
  12. Misconstruction of clamp (“mound of earth in which potatoes and other vegetables are stored”).

Origin

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...

Forms

camps

Related

campus champerty

Derived

autocamp auto camp band camp BarCamp base camp boot camp Bovington Camp break camp Bulford Camp Bullcamp bushcamp Camp 1 Camp 3 Camp 7 Camp 8 Camp Aguinaldo camp-ball camp bed Camp Blessing camp collar campcraft Camp Creek Camp David Camp Douglas

Noun countable, slang

  1. The areas of the Falkland Islands situated outside the capital and largest settlement, Stanley.
  2. 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. The pampas, which are the vast grassy areas situated in the rural areas beyond Argentine cities such as Buenos Aires.

Origin

From Spanish campo (“countryside”).

Forms

camps

Related

aide-de-camp

Noun Entry 4

  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...
    • Why would any Hollywood studio encourage a film's transformation into camp, in effect joining in the mockery of its own product? MGM declined to comment. - 1996 March 31, Trip Gabriel, “Showgirls' Crawls Back As High...

    Synonyms: campness campiness

    Coordinate Terms: cheesiness hokiness corniness silliness

Derived

high camp low camp

Verb Entry 5

  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. 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,...
  4. 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....
    • 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...
  5. 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. 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. Ellipsis of corpse camp.
  8. To fight; contend in battle or in any kind of contest; to strive with others in doing anything; compete.
    • 1562, Leigh, The Accedens of Armory ː Aristotle affirmeth that Rauens will gather together on sides, and campe and fight for victorie.
  9. To wrangle; argue.

Forms

camps camping camped

Derived

campability campable camp down cample camp out camp out on spawn camp uncamp

Verb Entry 6

  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...

    Synonyms: camp it up

Forms

camps camping camped

Related

glam vamp