campy

adjective

ˈkam-pē 

campier; campiest

: in the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way

campy horror movies

campy humor

Witnessing their synchronized routine, he almost expects them to break into some campy chorus line from one of the seedier nightclubs.

—Margaret Atwood

He could modify his outbursts into what were sometimes hilariously campy performances.

—Robert Gray

campily

ˈkam-pə-lē 

adverb

The new film promises to be as campily outrageous as its predecessors.

—John Stark

… the Addams Family, the campily macabre clan created by the late cartoonist Charles Addams …

—Margot Dougherty

campiness

ˈkam-pē-nəs 

noun

… hoped to take Rocketeer to a much higher level of sophistication and avoid the campiness of some of the more recent comics-inspired films.

—Ron Magid

… a power-mad despot, played with exhilarating campiness by John Malkovich.

—Steven Rebello

Examples of campy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Eurovision expands to Asia The Eurovision Song Contest on Tuesday announced its first Asia edition, with Bangkok set to host the campy international competition in the fall. —Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, semafor.com, 2 Apr. 2026

On a campy and subversive new album featuring Bladee, the Ukrainian black metal artist aspires to make the notoriously forbidding genre a little warmer. —Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork, 31 Mar. 2026

Her book will include an adaptation of the Orange Crunch Cake served at the Bubble Room, a campy restaurant on Captiva Island, and a recipe for crab chilau, the unofficial dish of Tampa, a spicy Sicilian-Afro-Cuban seafood stew. —Hannah Goldfield, New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2026

So campy and kitschy and glorious. —Literary Hub, 16 Mar. 2026

Word History

Etymology

camp entry 3 + -y entry 1

First Known Use

1932, in the meaning defined above