campus

noun

cam·​pus ˈkam-pəs How to pronounce campus (audio)
often attributive
Synonyms of campusnext
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
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
After his assassination, left-wing professors have attempted to shred Kirk's legacy, as Turning Point displays on college campuses have been destroyed and students have been threatened. —Peter D'abrosca, FOXNews.com, 27 Oct. 2025 Fermi has no revenue, but analysts are bullish on its deals to produce nuclear-power reactors for an AI data center campus in Texas. —Scott Schnipper, CNBC, 27 Oct. 2025 Jesse Watters Primetime will be live on the Ole Miss campus for the event, with Kirk introducing Vice President JD Vance, who will debate and take student questions through the night. —Ted Johnson, Deadline, 27 Oct. 2025 The New York school said that the Mary McFadden fashion archive has officially relocated to Pratt’s Brooklyn campus in the Juliana Curran Terian Design Center. —Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 27 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for campus

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

Time Traveler
The first known use of campus was in 1774

Phrases Containing campus

Rhymes for campus

See All Rhymes for campus

Browse Nearby Words

Camptosorus
campus
campy
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Campus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/campus. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.

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Kids Definition

campus

noun
cam·​pus ˈkam-pəs How to pronounce campus (audio)
plural campuses
: the grounds of a college or a school

More from Merriam-Webster on campus

Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for campus

Nglish: Translation of campus for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about campus

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