Campagnes

Campagnes is the plural form of the French noun campagne and has two principal meanings in French. The first designates the countryside, the rural areas outside towns, encompassing fields, farms, hedgerows, and small villages. The second meaning refers to a coordinated series of actions intended to achieve a defined objective, such as a military campaign, a political campaign, an advertising campaign, a fundraising campaign, or a public health campaign.

Etymology: Campagne derives from Medieval Latin campania, via Old French (and Italian), with roots in Latin campus meaning field or plain. This origin helps explain both the open rural sense and the metaphorical sense of organized effort.

Usage: Context determines meaning. à la campagne means to the countryside; la campagne électorale denotes an election campaign; une campagne publicitaire refers to an advertising campaign. The plural campagnes can thus refer to multiple rural regions (for example, les campagnes françaises) or to several campaigns across different domains.

In English usage, campaigns is the standard plural for campaign and is used for military, political, marketing, fundraising, and public health contexts, but it is not used to mean the countryside. See also Campaign; rural area; marketing; military campaign.