summer camp

noun

plural summer camps

1

: a camp (see camp entry 1 sense 1d) for children or adolescents that operates during the summer and that often provides lodging for stays of days or weeks

… traditional summer camps—where your child rides a horse, paddles a canoe, reads a compass, and roasts s'mores around a campfire …

—David Lansing

… summer camp is about campfires, trail hikes and goofy skits. It's a chance to meet kids from different cities and to learn to sleep through the snores of cabin mates.

—Emily Seftel

also : such a camp that provides instruction of a specified kind

went to an arts summer camp

compare day camp

2

: an online usually educational program for children or adolescents offered during the summer

… a virtual summer camp offering free classes in everything from slime-making to dinosaurs to make-your-own Lego movies. Kids aged five through 18 can create their own schedule, with hour-long classes five days a week for each session.

—Lisa Milbrand

Examples of summer camp in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

These are the kinds of hijinks fans came to expect, evoking all the feelings of a fun day at summer camp… with maybe a slightly higher volume of pranks. — Skyler Trepel, Entertainment Weekly, 20 June 2026

For more information on the Citizen Science Lab and how to enroll in its classes and science summer camps, click here. — Ross Guidotti, CBS News, 19 June 2026

Niki Cordell runs a summer camp in Chicago called Junior Chefs Kitchen. — Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, 19 June 2026

The couple, who met while performing as characters at Walt Disney World in Orlando in 1992, went on to wed on June 17, 2000 at a summer camp in Kentucky. — Kimberlee Speakman, PEOPLE, 19 June 2026

As children celebrate the end of the school year, parents across the country are scrambling to piece together summer camps, childcare, vacation days and flexible work arrangements to cover the roughly 10 weeks when school is out. — ABC News, 18 June 2026

Kids are out of school and summer camp is in swing. — Jennifer Rosen Heinz, Parents, 17 June 2026

Kids’ Summer Camp Essentials For many, summer is one of those seasons that leads to more packing than usual—beach trips, days at the pool, and summer camps require regular planning and thoughtful organization. — Lydia Mansel, Travel + Leisure, 16 June 2026

Ragsdale was the director of Heart O’ the Hills, a girls summer camp just a mile down the road from Camp Mystic that wasn’t in session over the Fourth of July weekend. — Karen Valby, Vanity Fair, 16 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1882, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for summer camp

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