boot camp

American  

noun

U.S. Navy, Marines.

• boot camps
  plural

1. a camp for training recruits.

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boot camp British  

noun

1. slang a basic training camp for new recruits to the US Navy or Marine Corps

2. a centre for juvenile offenders, with a strict disciplinary regime, hard physical exercise, and community labour programmes

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• boot camps
  plural

Etymology

Origin of boot camp

An Americanism dating back to 1940–45

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

boot camp

The kitchen scenes are a combo platter of boot camp, frat house hazing ritual and kung fu movie.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

I meet Draper, a billionaire tech investor himself, at Silicon Valley's Draper University, his boot camp for young tech founders, where students pledge to "promote freedom at all costs".

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

The CBC in those days was a bit like a boot camp for television.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

Someone said to me, “Maybe send an email out to the parents and let them know I’m not going to be putting them through boot camp, and making them do push-ups and screaming at them.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026

One purpose of boot camp is to take young men who are out of shape and make them physically fit.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac