champaign
[sham-peyn]
- level, open country; plain.
- Obsolete. a battlefield.
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- level and open: champaign fields.
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Origin of champaign
Champaign
[sham-peyn]
- a city in E Illinois, adjoining Urbana.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for champaign
Contemporary Examples
There are also practitioners of this dark art in Portland, Oregon; Champaign, Illinois; and … the Upper East Side of Manhattan?
And since 1999, he hosted the Roger Ebert Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois, home to the University of Illinois.
Roger Ebert, 70, Has Died: A Look at the Life of Cinema’s Great AppreciatorMarlow Stern
April 4, 2013
Historical Examples
"Let us finish this champaign, my good fellow," says the politician, emptying his glass.
An OutcastF. Colburn Adams
One of the professors in the Industrial University at Champaign is a lady.
The tailors are the best judges of that; but Champaign, I suppose.
Nineteen Centuries of Drink in EnglandRichard Valpy French
These Lordships are champaign grounds, and full of corn and fruit.
The Strange Adventures of Andrew BattellAndrew Battell
He is now at Champaign, Ill., and has not been able to attend trial.
champaign
- Also called: campagna an expanse of open level or gently undulating country
- an obsolete word for battlefield
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French champaigne, from Late Latin campānia; see campaign
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for champaign
n.
"open country, plain," c.1400, from Old French champagne "country, countryside," from Latin campania "plain, level country," especially that near Rome (see campaign (n.)).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper