town and gown non-members and members of a university in a particular place.

☞ The gown is the academic dress worn by university members, now required only on ceremonial or formal occasions. The distinction between town and gown was made in these specific terms in early 19th-century Oxford and Cambridge, but the traditional hostility between the native inhabitants of the two cities and the incoming students has been a long-standing phenomenon, as is evidenced by the St Scholastica's Day riot in Oxford in 1354.