Dictionary

decamp en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /diːˈkæmp/ (UK)
• (US) audio

Etymology

* French décamper, Old French descamper.

Meanings

1. (intransitive) To break camp and move on.
2. (intransitive) To disappear suddenly and secretly.
   • Colombia is a red herring, however. The songs that became Madame X actually came together during Madonna’s two years in Portugal, where she decamped in 2017 when her son David enrolled in Benfica’s football academy. Madonna absorbed the local sounds with more of a mature, simpatico rather than asset-stripping eye. 2019 June 8, Kitty Empire, “Madonna: Madame X review – a splendidly bizarre return to form”, in The Guardian:
   • Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:
3. (qualifier:perhaps nonstandard) To debark, to disembark.
   • It required much honking of horns (not only the bus's), several passengers decamping like rats leaving a sinking ship, and much waiting around while a large truck trying to negotiate the same alley found room to back up[…] 2011 May 14, Ann Timonin, Peter Timonin, Chinese Characters, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 161:
   • I let the civilian members of our team decamp the bus first and then the main members of Team Seven and finally the hippie from Iceland, Oran! ACT 50 I noticed an RAF truck at the bottom. 2019 April 18, Kenn Gordon, The Return of Seven, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:
   • That vehicle was incapacitated when, during a strafing attack by American planes, its driver neglected to set its brakes before decamping, and the bus crashed into a stone wall. Whitney spent the next three nights in a windowless cellar[…] 2021 July 22, E.J. Kahn, Jr., Jock: The Life and Times of John Hay Whitney, Plunkett Lake Press:

Forms

Deriveds

decampment · decamper · decampee

Synonyms

abscond · absquatulate

Translations (25)

fi livahtaa (disappear suddenly and secretly) · cmn 潛逃 /潜逃 (disappear suddenly and secretly) · de aussteigen (debark) · de aufbrechen (break up camp and move on) · pl zwiać (break up camp and move on) · fr débarquer (debark) · cmn 撤營 /撤营 (break up camp and move on) · de heimlich verschwinden (disappear suddenly and secretly) · cmn 下船 (debark) · de sich davonmachen (disappear suddenly and secretly) · fr décamper (break up camp and move on) · de abmarschieren (break up camp and move on) · de but see das Lager abbrechen (break up camp and move on) · de absteigen (debark) · cmn 登陸 /登陆 (debark) · fi nousta (debark) · fi livetä (disappear suddenly and secretly) · de sich davonstehlen (disappear suddenly and secretly) · pl zwiewać (break up camp and move on) · cmn 消失 (disappear suddenly and secretly) · fr décamper (disappear suddenly and secretly) · de ein Verkehrsmittel verlassen (debark) · fi lähteä (break up camp and move on) · fi purkaa leiri (break up camp and move on) · cmn 拔營 /拔营 (break up camp and move on)