Ivy League


noun
  1. a group of colleges and universities in the northeastern U.S., consisting of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown, having a reputation for high scholastic achievement and social prestige.

adjective
  1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Ivy League colleges or their students and graduates.

Origin of Ivy League

1
First recorded in 1935–40

Other words from Ivy League

  • Ivy Leaguer, noun

Words Nearby Ivy League

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use Ivy League in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Ivy League

Ivy League

noun
  1. US

    • the Ivy League a group of eight universities (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth College, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale) that have similar academic and social prestige in the US to Oxford and Cambridge in Britain

    • (as modifier): an Ivy-League education

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Ivy League

Ivy League

A group of eight old, distinguished colleges and universities in the East, known for their ivy-covered brick buildings. The members of the Ivy League are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities; Dartmouth College; and the University of Pennsylvania.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.