campus

noun

cam·​pus ˈkam-pəs 

often attributive

1

: the grounds and buildings of a university, college, or school

2

: a university, college, or school viewed as an academic, social, or spiritual entity

3

: grounds that resemble a campus

a hospital campus

a landscaped corporate campus

Examples of campus in a Sentence

Visitors crowded the campus on graduation day.

Rallies were held on college campuses across the country.

We walked around the campus on our first day.

Recent Examples on the Web

The administration also revoked Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, froze research funding, and pressed the university on DEI policies and campus protests. —Patrick Maguire, CBS News, 29 June 2025

Felipe Cardenas: Air conditioning, easy public transportation and a stadium campus that features thousands of hotel rooms and enough pubs and restaurants to keep you busy for days. —The Athletic Staff, New York Times, 28 June 2025

On Friday, protesters gathered at the campus, waving flags and voicing their disapproval of the administration. —Dalia Faheid, CNN Money, 27 June 2025

Among other things, the administration has threatened to withhold or cut off federal funding for schools that resist President Donald Trump's efforts to dismantle DEI policies, as well as schools the administration believes aren't doing enough to crack down on pro-Palestinian campus protests. —Sonam Sheth gabe Whisnant, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin, "flat expanse of land, plain, field" — more at camp entry 1

Note: The English word campus, an Americanism, originally referred to a large open space on the grounds of a college, in accordance with the meaning of its Latin source. The earliest documented use, in 1774, was at Princeton University (then the College of New Jersey). This sense was noted by an English visitor to Princeton in 1833: "In front of the College is a fine campus ornamented by trees" (John Finch, Travels in the United States of America and Canada [London, 1833], p. 282). Shortly before this time campus was used in a description of another American school, South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina): "… the whole [all of the college buildings] disposed so as to form a hollow square, containing about ten acres, which is called the Campus" (Robert Mills, Statistics of South Carolina [Charleston, 1826], p. 701). The use of campus apparently expanded with the growth of U.S. higher education after the Civil War, and the word began to take on an approximation of its current meaning. The etymology researcher Albert Matthews gleaned information from "college histories, college catalogues, and through correspondence" from 359 American institutions and discovered that among 295 "the meaning attached to Campus is that of the grounds in which the buildings stand, or the grounds in general" ("The Term 'Campus' in American Colleges," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions, vol. 3, March, 1897, p. 433-34). In the twentieth century the word was applied to the buildings as well as the grounds.

First Known Use

1774, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing campus

• big man on campus
• inter-campus
• off campus
• on campus

Rhymes for campus

• grampus
• hippocampus

Kids Definition

campus

noun

cam·​pus ˈkam-pəs 

plural campuses

: the grounds of a college or a school