campaign

From French campagne, from Italian campagna (“field, military operation”), from Late Latin campānia (“open country, battlefield”), from Latin campus (“field”). Doublet of champagne.

• IPA^(key): /kæmˈpeɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪn

campaign (plural campaigns)

1. A series of operations undertaken to achieve a set goal.

   an election campaign; a military campaign

   The company is targeting children in their latest advertising campaign.

   • 2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport‎:

     The Canaries went ahead when the home defence failed to clear their lines and Pilkington was on hand to slide in his eighth goal of the campaign.

2. The period during which a blast furnace is continuously in operation.
3. (obsolete) An open field; a large, open plain without considerable hills; a champaign.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grath to this entry?)

4. (obsolete) An excursion into the countryside.

campaign (third-person singular simple present campaigns, present participle campaigning, simple past and past participle campaigned)

1. (intransitive) To take part in a campaign.

   She campaigned for better social security.

   • 2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian‎:

     But the purported rise in violent videos online has led some MPs to campaign for courts to have more power to remove or block material on YouTube. The Labour MP Heidi Alexander said she was appalled after a constituent was robbed at knifepoint, and the attackers could be found brandishing weapons and rapping about gang violence online.

2. (transitive) Consistently ride in races for a racing season.
   • 1983 May, “Jack King: Merrythought”, in Yachting, volume 153, number 5, page 110:

     After modifying her for ocean racing, he campaigned her for three years, and in 1975, donated her to the U.S. Naval Academy.

   • 1983, Alexander Mackay-Smith, The colonial quarter race horse, page 14:

     The "more curious" were the affluent planters who bred and campaigned race horses in quarter races, the only form of racing practiced in the Virginia colony during the first 125 years of its existence.

   • 2002, John Albert Craft, Mustang Race Cars, →ISBN, page 124:

     Holman & Moody built more Mustangs than just the Mickey Thompson cars. One in that number was this red 302-powered 1969 Sportsroof. It was campaigned by David Pearson and Bobby Allison during the 1969 through 1972 seasons.

   • 2014, Doug Boyce, Drag Racing's Quarter-Mile Warriors: Then & Now, chapter 1, 31:

     Ron campaigned the car for a couple seasons before selling it to Mark Danekas (Danekas blowers), who ran the car himself briefly before putting it on the market once again.

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