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

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

Finally, at the junction of Kent State University and the town of Kent, Ohio, Weiss/Manfredi’s 117,000-square-foot College of Architecture and Environmental Design bridges town and gown.

From New York Times • Sep. 16, 2016

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

He had enjoyed his college days; he had been popular with town and gown; and he had managed to get his share of undergraduate fun while leading his classes.

From The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) by Wilder, Marshall Pinckney