break gates

present singular third person breaks gates · participle present breaking gates · past broke gates · participle past broken gates

1. UKdatedidiomaticuniversitiesTo enter an Oxford or Cambridge college enclosure after the hour to which a student has been restricted.

   He broke gates to-day; and then there was something that Grove did'nt seem inclined to be very explicit about.

   1868, “Willowstoke”, in The Light blue, a Cambridge university magazine, volume 3, page 210

   2 more examples

   From 12½ to past 2 at a College meeting: we rusticated 'sine die', an ill-conducted idle reckless vagabond named Moore — he had been gated, but he broke gates, shirked Sunday Evening Chapel & went to a Hotel to drink & smoke till they shut up the house & turned him out: —we did a good deal of Bursarial work.

   2000, Joseph Romilly, M. E. Bury, J. D. Pickles, Romilly's Cambridge Diary 1848-1864

   Students were frequently caught by the proctors and bulldogs for breaking gates ( i.e. going absent without leave ) .

   2011, Peter Linehan, St John's College, Cambridge: A History, page 304

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, gates.

   I have had horses break gates with me , and that both with and without getting a fall ; but candour must make me allow I never rode at one contemplating such a result ;

   1846, Harry Hieover, Stable Talk and Table Talk, Or, Spectacles for Young Sportsmen, page 32