also campground, "place for camping," 1806, from camp (n.) or (v.) + ground (n.).
Entries linking to camp-ground
camp n.
1520s, "place where an army lodges temporarily," from French camp, in this sense from Italian campo, from Latin campus "open field, level space," especially "open space for military exercise" (see campus).
The direct descendant of Latin campus in French is champ "a field." The Latin word had been taken up in early West Germanic as *kampo-z and appeared originally in Old English as camp "contest, battle, fight, war." This word was obsolete by mid-15c.
Transferred to non-military senses by 1550s. The meaning "body of adherents of a doctrine or cause" is from 1871. Camp-follower "one who follows an army without being officially connected to it," such as sutlers, washer-women, etc., is attested from 1810. Camp-meeting "religious meeting for prayer, etc., held in an outdoor camp" is from 1809, American English, originally and especially in reference to Methodists. Camp-fever (1758) is any epidemic fever incident to life in a camp, especially typhus or typhoid. A camp-stool (1794) has a flexible seat and cross-legs and is made to be folded up and packed away when not in use.
ground n.
Old English grund "bottom; foundation; surface of the earth," also "abyss, Hell," and "bottom of the sea" (a sense preserved in run aground), from Proto-Germanic *grundu-, which seems to have meant "deep place" (source also of Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Danish, Swedish grund, Dutch grond, Old High German grunt, German Grund "ground, soil, bottom;" Old Norse grunn "a shallow place," grund "field, plain," grunnr "bottom"). No known cognates outside Germanic.
Sense of "reason, motive" first attested c. 1200. Meaning "source, origin, cause" is from c. 1400. Electrical sense "connection with the earth" is from 1870 (in telegraphy). Meaning "place where one takes position" is from 1610s; hence stand (one's) ground (1707). To run to ground in fox-hunting is from 1779. Ground rule (1890) originally was a rule designed for a specific playing field (ground or grounds in this sense attested by 1718); by 1953 it had come to mean "a basic rule."