Meaning of camp follower | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A civilian who follows an army, typically a family member of a soldier or someone who provides services to the soldiers, e.g. prostitution, sale of liquor, cooking and laundry.
   historical
2. A person who provides services to those engaged in a particular endeavor.
3. One who joins a group, movement, or project without being a legitimate member; one who jumps on a bandwagon.

Equivalents

Examples

“But besides these incompetents, there was always a train of camp followers, —women who followed the camp, beggars, and criminals, whose number was often greater than the number of fighting soldiers.”

“There were very few camp followers at the beginning of the American Revolution. But as the war dragged on, the need for families to be together won out.”

“General Washington, in particular, fumed about camp followers, regularly complaining that pregnant women, small children, chickens, dogs, and domestic paraphernalia drastically diminished his army's mobility.”

“While prostitutes were camp followers, so were civilian wagon drivers, cooks, supply contractors, laundresses, valets, musicians, and family members of soldiers.”

“Unlike many other camp followers of that period, these Frenchwomen were regulated and officially recognized, and played a highly appreciated part in the army's daily life.”

“When the camp followers are engaged in supplying genuine recreation, in ministering to intellectual and spiritual wants instead of pandering to destructive instincts, the economic as well as the moral health of the community is sound.”

“The good fellow is the man with the good character and the object of the camp followers is to see that all the coopers and stave men have a good time.”

“Tipsters are the camp-followers of every speculative orgy, living by their wits on scraps from roaring stock markets, making their get-away before the suckers can hit back.”

“A Group which cannot complain too bitterly of expanded government interference in what used to be called private business includes tax experts, lawyers, and certified public accountants. Indeed, these camp followers of bureaucracy may be said to have struck it rich, since no businessman, or even professional man, with an income worth mentioning, is able to move hand or foot without employing an expert to assure him that he has not, merely by earning his living, laid himself liable to[…]”

“It was Arnold who, while setting criticism below creation, raised it from a camp follower of literature to the vanguard of thought.”

“Near-synonym: fellow traveller”

“I wouldn't discourage my camp followers for worlds! But I watch them pretty carefully, and when they show signs of making money, then I begin to put the screws on.”

“To learn from the Western countries which are scientifically and technologically advanced is one thing, but the moment Muslims forget that their roots are in Islam, and become the intellectual camp-followers of others, their creative energies are damped.”

“But the one difficulty was in talking about the work of talentless artists, the camp-followers of Futurism.”

“The petty-bourgeois camp-followers of the Social Democracy had been taken in by the bait of "patriotism," and thus the opponents of the Social Democracy were assured of success.”

“And as opposed to the sloppy sloganeering of the camp followers, the work of the innovators has methodological interest too: for these men want to be no less rigorous in their work for dealing with interesting, human problems; they want always to work things out (you'll see this so clearly in the interviews), not just to repeat what they've heard.”

“Do not add camp followers to your project if there is no operational benefit from doing so.”

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