encampment

noun

1. (countable, often, uncountable)A place where people (such as displaced people, soldiers, or travellers) encamp, that is, stay in tents or other temporary structures; a camp or campsite.

   “As ſoon as he came to the top of thoſe Hills he plainly diſcovered the Creek or Harbour vvhere the Pyrate Ships lay, and vvhere they had form'd their Encampment on the Shore.”

   “One of the greatest dangers that beset the travellers in this part of their expedition, was the vast number of rattlesnakes which infested the rocks about the rapids and portages, and on which the men were in danger of treading. They were often found, too, in quantities about the encampments.”

   “[P]erhaps, had the Moors passed these gates, and reached the Christian encampment, lulled, as it was, in security and sleep, that wild army of twenty thousand desperate men might have saved Granada; and Spain might, at this day, possess the only civilised empire which the faith of Mahomet ever founded.”

   “Shortly after leaving the station, the train passes the site of a small halt, built in August, 1889, to serve a large army encampment situated nearby.”

   “In Mississippi, Tom turned an encampment of do-gooder burners into an organization he dubbed Burners Without Borders.”

2. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A place where people or things stay temporarily.

   “This was an ancient lobster's house, / A lobster of prodigious nous, / So old that barnacles had spread / Their white encampments o'er its head,— […]”

3. (broadly, countable, uncountable)An enclosed or fortified prehistoric site, especially a European Iron Age hill-fort.
4. (broadly, countable, uncountable)A meeting (especially an annual meeting or important conference) of an outdoorsy group of people, such as military veterans or scouts of the scouting movement.
5. (broadly, countable, obsolete, uncountable)A meeting of Freemasons.
6. (uncountable)The act of encamping or setting up a camp; also, the state of being encamped or in a camp.

   “Mars Triumphant; or London's Glory: Being the whole art of encampment, with the method of embattling armies, marching them off, posting the officers, forming hollow squares, and the various ways of paying the salute with the half-pike; […]”

   “[F]rom the fate of vvar they vvere once more obliged to forſake culture for encampment, the ſvveets of rural life for their ſhocks of battle.”

   “The camp of a Roman legion preſented the appearance of a fortified city. […] Its form vvas an exact quadrangle; and vve may calculate, that a ſquare of about ſeven hundred yards vvas ſufficient for the encampment of tvventy thouſand Romans; though a ſimilar number of our ovvn troops vvould expoſe to the enemy a front of more than treble that extent.”

   “As Carriere, the Canadian straggler did not make his appearance for two days after the encampment in the valley, two men were sent on horseback in search of him. They returned, however, without success.”

name

1. a Chinese constellation located near Pegasus, one of the 28 lunar mansions and part of the larger Black Turtle.