campaign
Americannoun
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campaigns
plural
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the competition by rival political candidates and organizations for public office.
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a systematic course of aggressive activities for some specific purpose.
a sales campaign.
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Military.
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military operations for a specific objective.
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Obsolete. the military operations of an army in the field for one season.
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-
a story in a role-playing game, spread out over multiple play sessions, that usually keeps the same plot, setting, or main characters.
Last week we finished our campaign and I already miss it.
verb (used without object)
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campaigns,
present (3rd person singular)
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campaigned,
past participle, past
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campaigning
present participle
verb (used with object)
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campaigns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
campaigned,
past participle, past
-
campaigning
present participle
noun
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a series of coordinated activities, such as public speaking and demonstrating, designed to achieve a social, political, or commercial goal
a presidential campaign
an advertising campaign
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military a number of complementary operations aimed at achieving a single objective, usually constrained by time or geographic area
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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campaignsimple
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campaignssimple
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have campaignedperfect
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has campaignedperfect
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am campaigningprogressive
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are campaigningprogressive
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is campaigningprogressive
-
have been campaigningperfect progressive
-
has been campaigningperfect progressive
Past
-
campaignedsimple
-
had campaignedperfect
-
was campaigningprogressive
-
were campaigningprogressive
-
had been campaigningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of campaign
First recorded in 1620–30; from French campagne, from Italian campagna, from Late Latin campānia “level district,” equivalent to Latin camp(us) “field” + -ān(us) -an + -ia -ia
Explanation
A campaign is any series of actions or events that are meant to achieve a particular result, like an advertising campaign of television commercials and Internet ads that tries to convince kids to buy bubble gum-flavored toothpaste. The noun campaign describes any group of actions that are done with an ultimate purpose in mind. The goal of a political campaign is to put a candidate in office. The goal of a military campaign might be to take over a city, as in General Sherman's Civil War campaign to capture Atlanta. Campaign can also be used as a verb, like when an environmental organization campaigns to prevent a developer from building a shopping mall by asking people to sign petitions and soliciting their members of congress.
Vocabulary lists containing campaign
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Electoral Elocution: The Verbiage of Voting
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I Am Malala
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On the ball there was plenty to please the eye, not to mention the resilience to close a game out – a key criticism of that World Cup campaign.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
The videos were part of a wave of misinformation that accompanied a child vaccination campaign this year that saw more than seven million Filipinos inoculated.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
A Weber campaign spokesperson followed up with another response Thursday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
Freeman started this campaign with a hat-trick in the same game as Wade's double and that took his career mark to 58, all at the age of 25.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed that “a great man represents a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists of his being there.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
She wants to get rid of the churn-and-burn cycle of campaigns prioritizing immediate national victories over long-term local sustainability.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
Proposition 4 would repeal a 1988 ban on the public funding of campaigns and allow all local and state governments to offer public financing programs with certain conditions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
“Customers often don’t feel happy about these campaigns and may object to the intrusion,” says Ying Zou, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Adelaide Business School in Australia and one of the paper’s co-authors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
The Democratic socialist mayor said the city will spend $7.4 million on education campaigns and security upgrades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
Snowball, who had studied an old book of Julius Caesar’s campaigns which he had found in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
Together they became a power duo who campaigned to build a home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which three decades later led to the Music Center.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
In his first on-the-record interview about his rocky 33 months running Disney, Chapek said Bob Iger campaigned to undermine him and eventually reclaim the helm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
During earlier reporting trips to Sri Lanka, I met parents and family members of the disappeared who campaigned for decades to the search for truth.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
Peter Swallow, the Labour MP for Bracknell in Berkshire who ran for UK Youth Parliament aged 14, told the BBC the organisation has campaigned successfully on issues such as votes for 16-year-olds.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Once he became praetor, he’d campaigned to rename the legion the First Legion rather than the Twelfth Legion, to symbolize a new start for Rome.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Now, the Bowdoin College student is campaigning for Collins, explaining in Brunswick after his early morning football practice that her pitch as an independent voice for the state resonates with him.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
The candidates are campaigning on issues including improving public safety, reducing homelessness, providing more affordable housing and spurring economic development.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
His favourite pick would be a joint prize to Save the Children and Mykola Kuleba, a Ukrainian children's rights activist campaigning for the return of Ukrainian children illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
Nearby is a popular swimming spot at Conham River Park where there has been years of campaigning to protect the Avon from pollution, most recently with a charter of rights for the river.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Entrusted to assistant trainer James Fitzsimmons, Jr., while Sunny Jim manned the helm on the more precocious horses, Seabiscuit began a regimen of incredibly rigorous campaigning.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
