champaign

noun

1. (archaic)Open countryside, or an area of open countryside.

   “Thenne ſyre Gawayne was ſore greued with theſe wordes / and pulled oute his ſwerd and ſmote of his hede / And therwith torned theyr horſes and rode ouer waters and thurgh woodes tyl they came to theyre buſſhement / where as ſyr Lyonel and ſyr Bedeuer were houyng / The romayns folowed faſt after on horſbak and on foote ouer a chãpayn vnto a wood […]”

   “Of all theſe bounds euen from this Line, to this, / With ſhadowie Forreſts, and with Champains rich'd / With plenteous Riuers, and wide-ſkirted Meades / We make thee Lady.”

   “So Segrave in Leiceſterſhire (which Towne I am now bound to remember) is ſited in a Champain, at the edge of the Wolds, and more barren than the villages about it, yet no place likely yeelds a better aire.”

   “Where the Red Lion ſtaring o'er the way, / Invites each paſſing ſtranger that can pay; / Where Calvert’s butt, and Parſon’s black champaign, / Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane; […]”

   “[…] unthinking whether some grim fate were poised hawkwise above the level champaign of his life, or some dark storm of sorrow brewing on its calm horizon.”

2. (obsolete)A battlefield.

adj

1. Pertaining to open countryside; unforested, flat.

   “They are ſeated alongſt the ſea-coaſt, encompaſſed toward the land with huge and ſteepie mountains, having betweene both, a hundred leagues or there abouts of open and champaine ground.”

   “A fine champagne country, well stored with corn.”

   “In England mobility was taken for granted, at least outside the champaign agricultural areas.”

name

1. A city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States.