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town and gown
- In a college town, the relations between “town and gown” are those between the residents of the town and the students and faculty associated with the school, who in the past wore academic gowns. Such relations are often not friendly or pleasant.
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Idioms and Phrases
The inhabitants of a college or university town and the students and personnel of the college, as in There used to be friction between town and gown but the new parking lots have eased it . The gown in this expression alludes to the academic robes traditional in British universities. [Early 1800s]Discover More
Example Sentences
These town-and-gown fights were often attended by fatal results.
From Project Gutenberg
At Exeter College another town-and-gown fight was raging furiously.
From Project Gutenberg
There had been no town-and-gown feeling existing similar to what prevailed in places of greater pretensions.
From Project Gutenberg
The town-and-gown riots took the place of sports, that's all.
From Project Gutenberg
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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