red brick university

noun

Any traditional British university other than Oxford or Cambridge, especially one founded in the Victorian age in a large city.

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Meanings

nounred brick university (plural red brick universities)

plural red brick universities · alternative redbrick university

  1. UKAny traditional British university other than Oxford or Cambridge, especially one founded in the Victorian age in a large city.

    It took a while before he told me his background: a happy childhood; two degrees—a bachelor's from a red brick university and an Oxbridge PhD; a relatively high-flying job in academia that he liked rather than loved.

    2006 March 31, Adrian Turpin, “Not tonight darling, I'm online”, in Financial Times, retrieved 31 Mar 2006

Origin

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.

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Cite this entry
APA

red brick university. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/red%20brick%20university

MLA

“red brick university.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/red%20brick%20university. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “red brick university,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/red%20brick%20university.

Source: red brick university on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.