Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

plate-glass university

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.33 in modern English

Syllables: plate--glass u-ni-ver-si-ty
IPA

29

Scrabble Score

20

Letters

7

Syllables

13

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Any of several universities founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s in the era of the Robbins Report on higher education.

British usage

Example Sentences

"The new “red-bricks” of Hull, Exeter and Leicester were followed in the 60s by mass expansion as the “plate-glass universities”, such as Warwick, York and Sussex, came into being."
"Keele is historically important as the first ‘Plate Glass University’, but also for the vague carelessness of its planning and architecture, which made it a cautionary example, leading to the much more coherent masterplanning and landscaping at the Universities of Sussex (p. 238), Essex (p. 190), York (p. 394), East Anglia (p. 198) and Stirling (p. 508)."

Etymology

Modelled on red brick university, from the use of plate glass in modern architecture. Coined by British barrister Michael Beloff in 1970.

Usage

British usage

Inflected Forms

plate-glass universities (plural) plate glass university (alternative)

Questions

What does plate-glass university mean?: Any of several universities founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s in the era of the Robbins Report on higher education.
Where does plate-glass university come from?: Modelled on red brick university, from the use of plate glass in modern architecture. Coined by British barrister Michael Beloff in 1970.

How to pronounce plate-glass university

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