Other forms: campaigns, campaigned, campaigning
A campaign is a run of organised effort aimed at one result — posters, speeches, knocking on doors, all of it pointing the same way. An election campaign, a campaign to save the swimming pool, a campaign for cleaner air.
The word keeps three homes. In politics it is the months before a vote; in advertising it is a run of ads sharing one idea and one look; in the army, where it began, it is a season of connected operations. It works as a verb too — you campaign for something or against it, and the people doing it are campaigners. A campaign is a series of actions stretched over time, so one march on one Saturday is a protest, not a campaign. You launch a campaign, run a campaign, lead one.
1nouncampaignA planned series of actions over time to win support or reach a goal.~58%
“The campaign to save the library collected nine thousand signatures.”
2nounmarketingA run of advertising with one aim and one look.~3%
“The campaign put the new phone on every bus shelter in the city.”
3nounconnectedA connected series of military operations with one objective.~31%
“The winter campaign cost both armies more than either would admit.”
4verbworkTo work in an organised way, over time, for a cause.~8%
“She campaigned for twenty years before the law was changed.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 183 sentences found in the wild and placed 175 of them on a sense (8 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
From French campagne and Italian campagna, a word that meant a field and a military operation at the same time — from Latin campānia, open country and battlefield, and behind that campus, a field. An army on campaign was out in the fields, away from the town for the season. Champagne is the very same word: the flat open country.
Proto-Indo-European
*kh₂em-
Latin
campānia — open country, battlefield
Italian
campagna — field, military operation
French
campagne
English, today
campaign
From French campagne, from Italian campagna (“field, military operation”), from Latin campānia (“open country, battlefield”), from Latin campus (“field”). a doublet of campania and campagna and champagne.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA