encampment

See also: Encampment

English

WOTD – 11 November 2024

Etymology

PIE word
*h₁én

From encamp (“to establish a camp or temporary shelter”) +‎ -ment (suffix forming nouns denoting actions or their results).^[1]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈkæmpm(ə)nt/, /ɛn-/, /ɪŋ-/, /ɛŋ-/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈkæmpmənt/, /ɛn-/, /ɪŋ-/, /ɛŋ-/
Audio (General American): (file)
Hyphenation: en‧camp‧ment

Noun

encampment (countable and uncountable, plural encampments)

(countable)
2. (often military) A place where people (such as displaced people, soldiers, or travellers) encamp, that is, stay in tents or other temporary structures; a camp or campsite.
  Hyponyms: (in the Caucasus, Central Asia, or Southern Urals) aul, base camp, (military, historical) bastille, bivouac, firebase, hutment, (Afghan) kirri, (South Africa) laager, tent embassy, (military) tabor
  - 1725, [Daniel Defoe], “Part I”, in A New Voyage Round the World, by a Course Never Sailed before. […], London: […] A[rthur] Bettesworth, […]; and W. Mears, […], →OCLC, page 69:
    As ſoon as he came to the top of thoſe Hills he plainly diſcovered the Creek or Harbour vvhere the Pyrate Ships lay, and vvhere they had form'd their Encampment on the Shore.
  - 1836 October, Washington Irving, chapter XIII, in Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. […], volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, page 116:
    One of the greatest dangers that beset the travellers in this part of their expedition, was the vast number of rattlesnakes which infested the rocks about the rapids and portages, and on which the men were in danger of treading. They were often found, too, in quantities about the encampments.
  - 1838, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], “The Return—the Riot—the Treachery—and the Death”, in “Leila; or, The Siege of Granada”, in Leila; or, The Siege of Granada: And Calderon, the Courtier. […], London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans; Paris: Delloy and Co., →OCLC, book V, page 286:
    [P]erhaps, had the Moors passed these gates, and reached the Christian encampment, lulled, as it was, in security and sleep, that wild army of twenty thousand desperate men might have saved Granada; and Spain might, at this day, possess the only civilised empire which the faith of Mahomet ever founded.
  - 1946 July–August, K. Westcott Jones, “Isle of Wight Central Railway—2”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 243:
    Shortly after leaving the station, the train passes the site of a small halt, built in August, 1889, to serve a large army encampment situated nearby.
  - 2011, Steven T. Jones, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, San Francisco, Calif.: Consortium of Collective Consciousness, →ISBN:
    In Mississippi, Tom turned an encampment of do-gooder burners into an organization he dubbed Burners Without Borders.
3. (figurative) A place where people or things stay temporarily.
  - 1853 November, James Russell Lowell, “A Moosehead Journal: Addressed to the Edelmann Storg at the Bagni di Lucca”, in Fireside Travels, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1864, →OCLC, page 122:
    This was an ancient lobster's house, / A lobster of prodigious nous, / So old that barnacles had spread / Their white encampments o'er its head,— […]
4. (by extension, archaeology) An enclosed or fortified prehistoric site, especially a European Iron Age hill-fort.
5. (by extension, Freemasonry, obsolete) A meeting of Freemasons.
(uncountable) The act of encamping or setting up a camp; also, the state of being encamped or in a camp.
- 1709 September 7 (Gregorian calendar), Isaac Bickerstaff [et al., pseudonyms; Richard Steele], “Saturday, August 27, 1709”, in The Tatler, number 60; republished in [Richard Steele], editor, The Tatler, […], London stereotype edition, volume I, London: I. Walker and Co.; […], 1822, →OCLC, page 359:
  Mars Triumphant; or London's Glory: Being the whole art of encampment, with the method of embattling armies, marching them off, posting the officers, forming hollow squares, and the various ways of paying the salute with the half-pike; […]
  The title of a fictitious work.
- 1774, [Oliver] Goldsmith, “From the Peace with Persia to the Peace of Nicias”, in The Grecian History, from the Earliest State to the Death of Alexander the Great, volume I, London: […] J[ohn] and F[rancis] Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 222:
  [F]rom the fate of vvar they vvere once more obliged to forſake culture for encampment, the ſvveets of rural life for their ſhocks of battle.
- 1776, Edward Gibbon, “The Extent and Military Forces of the Empire in the Age of the Antonines”, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 15:
  The camp of a Roman legion preſented the appearance of a fortified city. […] Its form vvas an exact quadrangle; and vve may calculate, that a ſquare of about ſeven hundred yards vvas ſufficient for the encampment of tvventy thouſand Romans; though a ſimilar number of our ovvn troops vvould expoſe to the enemy a front of more than treble that extent.
- 1836 October, Washington Irving, chapter VII, in Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. […], volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, page 65:
  As Carriere, the Canadian straggler did not make his appearance for two days after the encampment in the valley, two men were sent on horseback in search of him. They returned, however, without success.