Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A civilian who follows a military unit from place to place, especially as a vendor of supplies or as a prostitute.
- n. One who follows but does not belong to a main body or group.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who follows a camp or an army without being officially connected with it, as a sutler, washerwoman, etc.
Wiktionary
- n. A civilian who works for a military organization, often a prostitute.
- n. A hanger-on.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a civilian accompanying an army, as a sutler, servant, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a prostitute who provides service to military personnel
- n. a follower who is not a member of an ingroup
Examples
“She was not a common harlot and camp follower but a woman known to the Athenians as a hetaira—a beautiful, educated, and charming female who shared the bed of her sponsor but also served as his confidante and advisor.”
“Every camp follower we kill will deprive them of the comforts they enjoy.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘camp follower’.
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What follows
follow up, track, pursue, tail, keep abreast, chase after, stick with, tagalong, stick to, trail, camp follower, dog and 66 more...
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Camp
I'll bring the bug spray and the waterproof matches.
camp, camping, camper, campylobacter, Jane Campion, campy, campesino, Camp David, campfire, camptown, scamp, Hello Muddah, Hel... and 88 more...
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My Modern Job in the Past
Words I come across at work.
Now stripped of most military terms, which have found a new home on the list Historical Military Terms of Interest. See also (and add to!) hilarious misspe...chaise-marine, delft, delftware, quince, tympan, cresset, navvy, venn diagram, poop deck, apothecary, heliotrope, millinery and 294 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2031 more...
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The New Poly-Sci Dictionary
Common Blogosphere terms
mouth breather, knuckledragger, freeper, astroturfing, reactionary, false flag, pig, flatearther, wingnut, fascist, fifth columnist, quisling and 60 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for camp follower.
chained_bear Camp followers were the wives, children, and prostitutes who followed and supplied the army to make money, assist their husbands, and support the revolution. These women washed, sewed, cooked, and brewed for the troops and nursed them when they were sick and injured. Women had long played a valuable role in provisioning the English and colonial armies and were proud of their work. For example, Martha May stressed her commitment to the army when she wrote to Henry Bouquet in 1758, 'I have been a wife 22 years to have traveled with my husband every place or country the company marched to and have worked very hard ever since I was in the army.' When Mary Cockron applied for a pension in 1837 for her own and her husband's service to the Continental Army, she stated that she 'drew her rations as other soldiers did.'
—Sarah Hand Meacham, Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender, and Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 112 Jun 18, 2010
chained_bear "'And you will go with him? As a camp follower?' William spoke with some disapproval; many soldiers' wives—or concubines—did 'follow the drum,' essentially joining the army with their husbands. He had not seen much of camp followers yet himself, as there had been none on the Long Island campaign—but he'd heard his father speak of such women now and then, mostly with pity. It wasn't a life for a woman of refinement."
—Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone (New York: Delacorte Press, 2009), 412 Dec 17, 2009