campaign
Definitions
General English
Commerce
- noun a series of coordinated activities to reach an objective
- verb to work in an organized way to get something
Law
- verb to try to change something by writing about it, organising protest meetings or lobbying Members of parliament
Media Studies
- noun a coordinated attempt to persuade an audience of something.
Military
- noun a prolonged period of military activity in a specific area or region
- verb to conduct or take part in a campaign
Politics
- noun a planned method of working to achieve something
- noun the work of candidates before an election when they try to win votes
- verb to try to get people to vote for you in an election
Origin & History of “campaign”
Ultimately, campaign and champagne are the same word. Both go back to late Latin campānia, a derivative of Latin campus ‘open field’ (source of English camp). this passed into Old French as champagne and into Italian as campagna ‘open country’, and both words have subsequently come to be used as the designation of regions in France and Italy (whence English champagne (17th c.), wine made in the champagne area of eastern France). The French word was also borrowed into English much earlier, as the now archaic champaign ‘open country’ (14th c.). Meanwhile, in Italian a particular military application of campagna had arisen: armies disliked fighting in winter because of the bad weather, so they stayed in camp, not emerging to do battle in the open countryside (the campagna) until summer. Hence campagna came to mean ‘military operations’; it was borrowed in to French as campagne, and thence into English.
