American Dictionary
Definition Ivy League in American English
Ivy League adjective
adjectiveThe Ivy League universities are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. They have an excellent educational reputation and high social status (similar to Oxford and Cambridge universities in Britain), and provide the U.S. with many of its leaders in business and public life. The phrase “Ivy League” comes from the idea that the buildings of these universities are covered in ivy, because they are so old.
1
belonging to a group of eight important universities in the northeastern part of the U.S.
Synonyms and related words
