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concentration camp

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noun

a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners.

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RELATED WORDS

gulag

Nearby words

  1. concent,
  2. concenter,
  3. concentrate,
  4. concentrated,
  5. concentration,
  6. concentration cell,
  7. concentration gradient,
  8. concentrative,
  9. concentre,
  10. concentric

Origin of concentration camp

1900–05, applied orig. to camps where noncombatants were placed during the Boer War
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
British Dictionary definitions for concentration camp

concentration camp

noun

a guarded prison camp in which nonmilitary prisoners are held, esp one of those in Nazi Germany in which millions were exterminated
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for concentration camp

concentration camp

n.

1901, "compound for noncombatants in a war zone" (see concentration); a controversial idea from the second Boer War (1899-1902), and the term emerged with a bad odor. In reference to prisons for dissidents and minorities in Nazi Germany from 1934, in Soviet Russia from 1935.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Culture definitions for concentration camp

concentration camp

A place for assembling and confining political prisoners and enemies of a nation. Concentration camps are particularly associated with the rule of the Nazis in Germany, who used them to confine millions of Jews (see also Jews) as a group to be purged from the German nation. Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other persons considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, or who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps and eventually executed in large groups. (See Holocaust.)

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.