ivory tower
Americannoun
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a place or situation remote from worldly or practical affairs.
the university as an ivory tower.
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an attitude of aloofness from or disdain or disregard for worldly or practical affairs.
his ivory tower of complacency.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ivory tower
Translation of French tour d'ivoire, phrase used by C.A. Sainte-Beuve in reference to the isolated life of the poet A. de Vigny (1837)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Crouch, she adds, is one of the keys to getting her research “out from the ivory tower to the practitioners.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
“I use these examples to show my team that we can’t be ivory tower operators.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 2, 2026
Often operating in ivory tower silos and echo chambers, we scientists do an incredibly poor job of explaining to the public what and why we’re studying, our methodology, and the potential advantages of our work.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2025
Though Dr. Mott spent her career in some of academia’s elite spaces, she was firmly committed to the idea that scholarship should be grounded and tangible, not succumbing to ivory tower abstraction.
From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2024
Baudelaire built his ivory tower on the borders of a poetic Maremma, which every miasma of the spirit pervaded, every marsh-light and glow-worm inhabited.
From The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire with an Introductory Preface by James Huneker by Charles Baudelaire
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.
