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concentration camp

[ kon-suhn-trey-shuhn kamp ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

a guarded compound for the mass detention without hearings or the imprisonment without trial of civilians, as refugees, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.
a Nazi prison camp or death camp prior to and during World War II.

concentration camp

noun

a guarded prison camp in which nonmilitary prisoners are held, esp one of those in Nazi Germany in which millions were exterminated

concentration camp

A place for assembling and confining political prisoners and enemies of a nation. Concentration camps are particularly associated with the rule of the Nazis in Germany , who used them to confine millions of Jews (see also Jews ) as a group to be purged from the German nation. Communists , Gypsies , homosexuals, and other persons considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, or who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps and eventually executed in large groups. ( See Holocaust .)

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Word History and Origins

Origin of concentration camp¹

First recorded in 1900–05, applied originally to camps where noncombatants were placed during the Boer War

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Compare Meanings

How does concentration camp compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

On Monday, Trump and his staff made it abundantly clear that they intend to reject the Supreme Court's ruling that they cannot illegally imprison innocent people in a concentration camp in El Salvador.

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One passage describes how Rachel Schwartz, 93, “arrived in Detroit with her sister in 1946 after surviving the Holocaust, including the Warsaw Ghetto, three concentration camps, and a death march.”

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I think what's happening now, in terms of arbitrary deportations and concentration camps in areas beyond our constitutional protections, is un-American.

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He once acquired the manuscript for a cookbook written by a woman who survived the Holocaust and collected recipes while living in a concentration camp.

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Venezuela criticised Trump's use of the act, saying it "unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration" and "evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps".

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Related Words

concentration concentration cell

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