Other forms: camps, camping, camped
A camp is a place where people stay in tents or huts for a while. Summer camp, set up camp, a refugee camp.
The word covers holidays and emergencies equally, which is a strange range: a summer camp and a refugee camp are the same word doing very different work. As a verb it means to stay there. Camp as an adjective means deliberately exaggerated and theatrical, which is a separate word of uncertain origin. Note that the noun comes from the Latin for a field.
1nouncampA place where people stay in tents or huts for a while.
“The scouts set up camp by the lake and cooked dinner over a fire.”
2verbstayTo stay in tents.
“We camped by the river for the whole weekend.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
camp is a temporary settlement.
Old English camp meant a battlefield or open space, from Latin campus, a field. Campus, champion and campaign come from the same field.
Proto-Indo-European
*kh₂em-
fro-nor
camp
Middle French
can, camp — place where an army lodges temporarily
Proto-Indo-European
*kh₂em- — to bend; crooked
Latin
campus — open field, level plain
Proto-West Germanic
*kamp — open field where military exercises are held, level plain
Old English
camp — battle, contest, battlefield, open space
Middle English
kampe — battlefield, open space
English, today
camp
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 kh₂em- (“to bend; crooked”). Reinforced circa 1520 by Middle French can, camp (“place where an army lodges temporarily”), from fro-nor 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”). a 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 above. Cognate with Dutch kampen, German kämpfen (“to struggle”), Danish kæmpe, Swedish kämpa.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA