death camp

American  

noun

1. a concentration camp in which the inmates are unlikely to survive or to which they have been sent to be executed.

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death camp British  

noun

1. a concentration camp in which the conditions are so brutal that few prisoners survive, or one to which prisoners are sent for execution

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Etymology

Origin of death camp

First recorded in 1940–45

Compare meaning

How does death-camp compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• concentration camp vs. death camp

Example Sentences

Those aspirations were made more urgent in the early 1940s by revelations of the Nazi death camps.

From The Wall Street Journal

Evangelicals view Israel through the prism of a celebrated tradition of Christians who opposed the Nazis and rescued Jews from Hitler’s death camps.

From The Wall Street Journal

At the same time, the concentration camp is a modern global phenomenon with its own ironic history, which long precedes the Nazi death camps.

From Salon

Other camps further east, like the death camps of Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz, had either been destroyed by the Germans to hide their crimes in the face of Soviet advances or emptied of their inmates.

From BBC

Ernest Salomon of Santa Barbara, almost 90, said he and some of his immediate family escaped German death camps while other relatives perished.

From Los Angeles Times