When going to 'camp' meant Roman military lodgings — not summer fun

Counselors and campers pictured at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio, in 2024. Joshua Bickel/AP hide caption toggle caption Joshua Bickel/AP Classrooms have emptied out, the solstice sun has reached its zenith, and parents are coating their children in sunscreen and bug spray to participate in that annual tradition: summer camp. "Camp": It's a word that's become a large part of American children's lives, encompassing everything from sleepaway camps in the woods to day programs at community centers. But the earliest roots of the word in the early 1500s have very little to do with summer recreation, according to Jennifer Hurd, an editor and lexicographer from the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact, it had everything to do with the Roman military. "If you talk about a summer camp now, I'm pretty sure that nobody would think about the Romans," she says. In this installment of NPR's Word of the Week, we're going to camp — all the way back to the 16th century military quarters —and how it became entrenched in American childhood thanks to societal fears about modernity and masculinity. From the military to the mountains Like many other words in the English language, Hurd says, the word comes from the French word camp, which means temporary military lodgings. The French word was derived from the Latin campus, or a field where troops would marshal for drills, according to David Wilton, a lecturer in Texas A&M University's English department and the publisher of WordOrigins.org . …