concentration camp

noun

: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard

—used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners

The Nazi soldiers hauled [Mordechai] Strigler off to a concentration camp, and carved swastikas into his cheeks and forehead with a razor blade. Over the next five years, he was sent from one concentration camp or slave-labor camp to another.

—David Remnick

She ended up dying in a concentration camp, just a few months before she would have been liberated.

—Marilyn Reynolds

The V2 killed thousands of British civilians while 20,000 concentration camp inmates died as slave labourers during its manufacture in the closing stages of the second world war.

—Anna Tomforde et al.

see also death camp

Examples of concentration camp in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

So now our unelected state attorney general has proposed a concentration camp in the middle of the Everglades with a convenient airstrip for hustling people out of the country without due process. —Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 26 June 2025

Millions of people have visited Europe’s concentration camps like Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald. —Michael Goldstein, Forbes.com, 26 May 2025

Freundlich was sent to a concentration camp on March 4, 1943, and died there five days later. —Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2025

Sounds like families being separated to go to concentration camps. —Chicago Tribune, 26 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for concentration camp

• amp
• champ
• clamp
• cramp
• damp
• gamp
• lamp
• ramp
• samp
• scamp
• stamp
• tamp

Kids Definition

concentration camp

noun

: a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained