campus

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin campus (“field”). Doublet of camp. First used in its current sense in reference to Princeton University in the 1770s.

noun

1. The grounds or property of a school, college, university, business, church, or hospital, often understood to include buildings and other structures.
   The campus is sixty hectares in size.
   From their corporate campuses on the west coast, America’s technology entrepreneurs used to ignore faraway Washington, DC—or mention the place only to chastise it for holding back innovation with excessive regulation. They have, at times, invested in the low politics of self-interested lobbying […]. Yet unlike Wall Street[…]tech tycoons have remained largely aloof from the broader affairs of the nation’s capital. 2013-08-24, Schumpeter, “Mr Geek goes to Washington”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8850
   In addition to this signage there are promotional videos broadcast in English on television screens around the campus. 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 5
2. An institution of higher education and its ambiance.
   During the late 1960s, many an American campus was in a state of turmoil.

verb

1. To confine (a student) to campus as a punishment.
   They hold sessions regularly and “campus” women for staying out late—and they do their best campussing at those times when they are sleepiest and meanest from being out until three and four themselves the night before. 1932, The Syllabus, volume 48, page 444
   A secondary punishment was ‘campussing’, or confinement to a campus; and for the most trivial offences the treatment was a withering harangue from Mrs Wilmington, sometimes lasting for over an hour. 1955, The Twentieth Century, volume 157, page 278
   SM has been very patient but just last Friday one of them was campussed for two weeks with an automatic two day suspension if he didn't heed the campussing because of repeated contempt for fairly easy to fulfill sentences. 30 January 1996, Maggie Smith, Evergreen School, quotee, “Attendance Issues”, in The 1996 Collection: Prepared for Sudbury Schools and Planning Groups, Framingham, Massachusetts: Sudbury Valley School Press, published August 1996, page 131
2. (climbing) To use a campus board, or to climb without feet as one would on a campus board.
   It is climbed or "campused" with only your arms and hands. 2010, Stewart M. Green, Ian Spencer-Green, Knack Rock Climbing: A Beginner’s Guide, page 30
   Boulder campusing is a popular indoor training exercise among advanced climbers—it's also a heck of a lot of fun if you're strong enough to do it right! 2016, Eric Horst, The Rock Climber's Exercise Guide, page 159