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campus

UK/ˈkæmpəs/US/ˈkæmpəs/
nounB1+Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,346 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: campuses, campi

A campus is the grounds and buildings of a college. On campus, campus life, the main campus.

The word was first used of Princeton in the 1770s and spread from America to the world. It now covers company sites too — the tech campus is a deliberate borrowing of the university's atmosphere. The Latin campus means a field, which is also behind camp and champion.

Definitions of campus

  1. 1nouncampusThe grounds and buildings of a college.B1+

    “The university campus has its own library, gym and cinema.”

campus is a site.

Where it comes from

Latin campus means a field. It was first used of Princeton in the 1770s. Camp and champion come from the same field.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *kh₂em-

  2. Latin

    campus — field

  3. English, today

    campus

Borrowed from Latin campus (“field”). a doublet of camp and champ. First used in its current sense in reference to Princeton University in the 1770s.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

campus in the wild

  • A campus traditionally refers to the land and buildings of a college or university.

    Campus

  • The institution moved to Newark in 1747 and then to its Mercer County campus in Princeton nine years later.

    Princeton University

  • The university is organized around seven schools of study on an 8,180-acre campus, one of the largest in the nation.

    Stanford University

  • The university has a 700-acre (2.8 km2) main campus in the city's University District, with satellite campuses in nearby cities of Tacoma and Bothell.

    University of Washington

  • George campus of the University of Toronto with a total of 76 students.

    York University

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the campus family

campcampus

campus — used about once every 311 pages · #2,346 · point at the bar for the others