town and gown

Cultural  

1. 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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town and gown Idioms  

1. 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]

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Example Sentences

Both these spaces try to blur the boundary between inside and outside, town and gown.

From New York Times • Jan. 5, 2023

A favorite pastime of bored Athens youth, both town and gown, who were not yet old enough to enter bars was to “cruise” Court Street, the town’s main drag.

From Salon • May 27, 2019

The contemplative atmosphere of the yard would not be the same if not for the gates and the fences that delineate a barrier between town and gown.

From New York Times • Aug. 19, 2016

Dorothy Sayers’s 1935 mystery about lethal shenanigans in Oxford’s mythical Shrewsbury College is an atmospheric masterpiece about female ambition and class tensions between town and gown.

From Washington Post • May 13, 2016

While the townspeople have always shown their pride in the University and their interest in its welfare, Ann Arbor has not escaped entirely the traditional rivalries between town and gown.

From The University of Michigan by Shaw, Wilfred