Library / English Dictionary

CAMP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Temporary living quarters specially built by the army for soldiers

Example:

wherever he went in the camp the men were grumbling

Synonyms:

bivouac; camp; cantonment; encampment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

military quarters (living quarters for personnel on a military post)

Domain category:

armed forces; armed services; military; military machine; war machine (the military forces of a nation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

boot camp (camp for training military recruits)

hutment (an encampment of huts (chiefly military))

laager; lager (a camp defended by a circular formation of wagons)

Derivation:

camp (live in or as if in a tent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Temporary lodgings in the country for travelers or vacationers

Example:

level ground is best for parking and camp areas

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

housing; living accommodations; lodging (structures collectively in which people are housed)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

tennis camp (a camp where tennis is taught)

trailer camp; trailer park (a camp where space for house trailers can be rented; utilities are generally provided)

Derivation:

camp (live in or as if in a tent)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A penal institution (often for forced labor)

Example:

China has many camps for political prisoners

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

penal facility; penal institution (an institution where persons are confined for punishment and to protect the public)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

concentration camp; stockade (a penal camp where political prisoners or prisoners of war are confined (usually under harsh conditions))

labor camp; labour camp (a penal institution for political prisoners who are used as forced labor)

internment camp; POW camp; prison camp; prisoner of war camp (a camp for prisoners of war)

prison camp; prison farm; work camp (a camp for trustworthy prisoners employed in government projects)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A site where care and activities are provided for children during the summer months

Example:

city kids get to see the country at a summer camp

Synonyms:

camp; summer camp

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

land site; site (the piece of land on which something is located (or is to be located))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

day camp (a camp providing care and activities for children during the daytime)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Shelter for persons displaced by war or political oppression or for religious beliefs

Synonyms:

camp; refugee camp

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

shelter (temporary housing for homeless or displaced persons)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Something that is considered amusing not because of its originality but because of its unoriginality

Example:

the living room was pure camp

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

staleness; triteness (unoriginality as a result of being dull and hackneyed)

Derivation:

camp (give an artificially banal or sexual quality to)

campy (providing sophisticated amusement by virtue of having artificially (and vulgarly) mannered or banal or sentimental qualities)

Sense 7

Meaning:

An exclusive circle of people with a common purpose

Synonyms:

camp; clique; coterie; ingroup; inner circle; pack

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

band; circle; lot; set (an unofficial association of people or groups)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

hard core (the most dedicated and intensely loyal nucleus of a group or movement)

galere; rogue's gallery (a coterie of undesirable people)

faction; sect (a dissenting clique)

maffia; mafia (any tightly knit group of trusted associates)

junta; military junta (a group of military officers who rule a country after seizing power)

cabal; camarilla; faction; junto (a clique (often secret) that seeks power usually through intrigue)

loop (an inner circle of advisors (especially under President Reagan))

brain trust; kitchen cabinet (an inner circle of unofficial advisors to the head of a government)

bohemia (a group of artists and writers with real or pretended artistic or intellectual aspirations and usually an unconventional life style)

Bloomsbury Group (an inner circle of writers and artists and philosophers who lived in or around Bloomsbury early in the 20th century and were noted for their unconventional lifestyles)

Sense 8

Meaning:

A group of people living together in a camp

Example:

the whole camp laughed at his mistake

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("camp" is a kind of...):

assemblage; gathering (a group of persons together in one place)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "camp"):

hobo camp; jungle (a place where hoboes camp)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Providing sophisticated amusement by virtue of having artificially (and vulgarly) mannered or banal or sentimental qualities

Example:

campy Hollywood musicals of the 1940's

Synonyms:

camp; campy

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

tasteless (lacking aesthetic or social taste)

 III. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Give an artificially banal or sexual quality to

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "camp" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

camp (something that is considered amusing not because of its originality but because of its unoriginality)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Establish or set up a camp

Synonyms:

camp; camp down

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "camp" is one way to...):

pitch; set up (erect and fasten)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 3

Meaning:

Live in or as if in a tent

Example:

The houseguests had to camp in the living room

Synonyms:

bivouac; camp; camp out; encamp; tent

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "camp" is one way to...):

dwell; inhabit; live; populate (be an inhabitant of or reside in)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

camp (temporary living quarters specially built by the army for soldiers)

camp (temporary lodgings in the country for travelers or vacationers)

camper (someone living temporarily in a tent or lodge for recreation)

camping (the act of encamping and living in tents in a camp)

Credits

 Context examples: 

In the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They were obliged to camp out that night under a large tree in the forest, for there were no houses near.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

As nomadic as the Kalahari's San Bushmen, D'Odorico and Okin move from place to place, setting up camp in game reserves, local village farms and communal lands to study the desert's dunes.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

You might even enjoy a camping holiday.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

So long as I followed it down I must come to the lake, and so long as I followed it back I must come to the camp.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Retreating before Lip-lip, White Fang made an indirect flight that led in and out and around the various tepees of the camp.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The tent is for your especial benefit and that oak is your drawing room, this is the messroom and the third is the camp kitchen.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Next, I saw Hannibal passing the Alps, who told me “he had not a drop of vinegar in his camp.”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)