campus

Borrowed from Latin campus (“field”). Doublet of camp and champ.

First used in its current sense in reference to Princeton University in the 1770s.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkæmpəs/, /ˈkæmpʊs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæmpəs/, /ˈkænpəs/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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campus (plural campuses or campusses or (nonstandard) campi)

1. The grounds or property of a school, college, university, business, church, or hospital, often understood to include buildings and other structures.

   The campus is sixty hectares in size.

   • 2013 August 24, Schumpeter, “Mr Geek goes to Washington”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8850:

     From their corporate campuses on the west coast, America’s technology entrepreneurs used to ignore faraway Washington, DC—or mention the place only to chastise it for holding back innovation with excessive regulation. They have, at times, invested in the low politics of self-interested lobbying […]. Yet unlike Wall Street […] tech tycoons have remained largely aloof from the broader affairs of the nation’s capital.

   • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 5:

     In addition to this signage there are promotional videos broadcast in English on television screens around the campus.

2. An institution of higher education and its ambiance.

   During the late 1960s, many an American campus was in a state of turmoil.

• The Latinate plural form campi is sometimes used, particularly with respect to colleges or universities; however, it is sometimes frowned upon. By contrast, the common plural form campuses is universally accepted.

campus (third-person singular simple present campuses or campusses, present participle campusing or campussing, simple past and past participle campused or campussed)

1. To confine (a student) to campus as a punishment.
   • 1932, The Syllabus, volume 48, page 444:

     They hold sessions regularly and “campus” women for staying out late—and they do their best campussing at those times when they are sleepiest and meanest from being out until three and four themselves the night before.

   • 1955, The Twentieth Century, volume 157, page 278:

     A secondary punishment was ‘campussing’, or confinement to a campus; and for the most trivial offences the treatment was a withering harangue from Mrs Wilmington, sometimes lasting for over an hour.

   • 1996 January 30, Maggie Smith, Evergreen School, quotee, “Attendance Issues”, in The 1996 Collection: Prepared for Sudbury Schools and Planning Groups, Framingham, Massachusetts: Sudbury Valley School Press, published August 1996, →ISBN, page 131:

     SM has been very patient but just last Friday one of them was campussed for two weeks with an automatic two day suspension if he didn't heed the campussing because of repeated contempt for fairly easy to fulfill sentences.

2. (climbing) To use a campus board, or to climb without feet as one would on a campus board.
   • 2010, Stewart M. Green, Ian Spencer-Green, Knack Rock Climbing: A Beginner’s Guide, page 30:

     It is climbed or "campused" with only your arms and hands.

   • 2016, Eric Horst, The Rock Climber's Exercise Guide, page 159:

     Boulder campusing is a popular indoor training exercise among advanced climbers—it's also a heck of a lot of fun if you're strong enough to do it right!

Borrowed from Latin campus. Compare the inherited doublet campu.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkampus/ [ˈkãm.pus]
• Rhymes: -ampus
• Syllabification: cam‧pus

campus m (plural campus)

1. campus (grounds or property of a school, etc)

Borrowed from Spanish campus, from Latin campus.

• IPA^(key): /kampus̺/ [kãm.pus̺]

• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -ampus̺, -us̺
• Hyphenation: cam‧pus

campus inan

1. campus

• “campus”, in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy] (in Basque), Euskaltzaindia [Royal Academy of the Basque Language]

Borrowed from Latin campus.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈkam.pus]

• Audio (Barcelona):

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campus m (invariable)

1. campus

Borrowed from English campus, from Latin campus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑm.pʏs/

• Audio:

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• Hyphenation: cam‧pus

campus m (plural campussen, diminutive campusje n)

1. campus

• campusuniversiteit

Borrowed from Latin campus. Doublet of camp and the inherited champ.

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃.pys/

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

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• Audio (France (Lyon)):

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campus m (invariable)

1. campus (grounds of a university)

• → Romanian: campus
• → Turkish: kampüs

• “campus”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Traditionally, from Proto-Italic *kampos, from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂ém-po-s, from *kh₂emp- (“to bend, curve; smooth”), making it an exact cognate of Lithuanian kam̃pas (“corner”) and Ancient Greek καμπ- (kamp-, “bend”). Compare camur (“curved, bent”) for the root without a -p- suffix.

Alternatively, perhaps an agricultural term borrowed from a substrate language; this would explain the irregular correspondences between Latin and Greek.^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkam.pʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkam.pus]

campus m (genitive campī); second declension

1. Open flat level ground: a plain, a natural field
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.691–692:

     ‘hoc’ ait ‘in campō’ (campumque ostendit) ‘habēbat
     rūs breve cum dūrō parca colōna virō.’

     “In this plain,” he says (and he shows me the plain), “a thrifty countrywoman was maintaining a little farm along with her sturdy husband.”

   Campus Mārtius ― The Field of Mars

2. (literary) Any flat or level surface
   • Plautus, Trin., 4, 1, 15:

     ...campī natantēs...

3. a specific plain or field north of Rome’s walls called the Campus Mārtius, where the comitia centuriata were held
   • 63 BCE, Cicero, Catiline Orations Oratio in Catilinam Prima in Senatu Habita.11:

     Cum proximīs comitiīs cōnsulāribus mē cōnsulem in campō et competītōrēs tuōs interficere voluistī, compressī cōnātūs tuōs nefāriōs amīcōrum praesidiō et cōpiīs, nūllō tumultū pūblicē concitātō; […] .

     When, at the last consular elections, you wished to kill me, the consul, and your competitors in the Campus Martius, I suppressed your wicked attempts by means of the protection and forces of my friends without any disturbance being excited publicly.

4. A field of action: scope
5. A field of debate: a topic
6. An opportunity
7. The produce of a field
8. (New Latin) The campus of a university, college, or business

Second-declension noun.

• “campus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “campus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "campus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “campus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Lewis, Charleton & al. "campus" in A Latin Dictionary.

• câmpus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin campus. Compare the inherited doublet campo.

• Homophone: campos

campus m (plural campi or (nonstandard) campus)

1. campus
   • Além das unidades localizadas nos campi Pampulha e Saúde, a UFMG possui ainda outras no centro de Belo Horizonte e bairros periféricos.

     Besides units located in the Pampulha and Health campuses, UFMG has others in downtown Belo Horizonte and surrounding neighborhoods.

• “campus”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “campus”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

• кампус (campus) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

Borrowed from French campus, English campus, from Latin campus. Doublet of the inherited câmp.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkam.pus/
• Rhymes: -ampus
• Hyphenation: cam‧pus

campus n (plural campusuri)

1. campus

Borrowed from Latin campus. Compare the inherited doublet campo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkampus/ [ˈkãm.pus]

• Audio (Venezuela):

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• Rhymes: -ampus
• Syllabification: cam‧pus

campus m (plural campus)

1. campus

• “campus”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

From camp (“feat, accomplishment”) +‎ -us.

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /ˈkampɨ̞s/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /ˈkampɪs/

campus (feminine singular campus, plural campus, equative campused, comparative campusach, superlative campusaf)

1. excellent, splendid

   Synonyms: gorchestol, rhagorol, penigamp, ardderchog, gwych