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A.Word.A.Day--redbrick

This week's theme: words with color as metaphors.

redbrick (RED-brik) adjective

Lacking prestige.

[The term usually describes universities. A redbrick university is one built in the UK in the late 19th or early 20th century, as opposed to the older prestigious institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge. The term is mostly used in the UK. A contrasting term in the US is Ivy League. An Ivy League university is one of several in the northeastern US that have high prestige and a reputation for scholastic achievement. The term alludes to the age of the universities reflected in the ivy that festoons the outside walls of the buildings on campus.]

See more usage examples of redbrick in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"To date, the novel that has done most to make [David] Lodge's name as a writer of fiction has been Changing Places, a funny study of two English professors -- one from a dowdy English redbrick university, the other from a thinly disguised Berkeley." Nicholas Pashley; Arthurian Academics; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Jul 7, 1984.

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