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Ivy League

American  

noun

  1. a group of colleges and universities in the northeastern U.S., consisting of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown, having a reputation for high scholastic achievement and social prestige.

adjective

  1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Ivy League colleges or their students and graduates.

Ivy League British  

noun

    1. a group of eight universities (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth College, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale) that have similar academic and social prestige in the US to Oxford and Cambridge in Britain

    2. ( as modifier )

      an Ivy-League education
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Ivy League Cultural  

  1. A group of eight old, distinguished colleges and universities in the East, known for their ivy-covered brick buildings. The members of the Ivy League are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities; Dartmouth College; and the University of Pennsylvania.

Other Word Forms

  • Ivy Leaguer noun

Etymology

Origin of Ivy League

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

NEW YORK—Jeffrey Epstein never earned a college degree—let alone one from a fancy Ivy League university.

From The Wall Street Journal

Cole is a 37-year-old tax economist with Ivy League degrees, a mortgage and a young child.

From The Wall Street Journal

And yet, whether socialite spy or glasses-wearing econometrician, both were drawn from the Ivy League and a handful of other acceptable schools, thereby maintaining a largely closed circle.

From The Wall Street Journal

It was a terrible time for the Ivy League’s golden goose to stop laying eggs.

From The Wall Street Journal

We debated what extracurriculars would look best on my resume and which Ivy League schools I should apply to in six years.

From Literature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.