Etymology

red brick university

Today it means: Any traditional British university other than Oxford or Cambridge, especially one founded in the Victorian age in a large city. Full definition →

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The story

From the memoir Redbrick University by Edgar Allison Peers, whose titular university is based on the University of Liverpool. Liverpool, like most urban universities of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, extensively uses red clay bricks in its architecture.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.