plate-glass
(ˈpleɪtˈglɑːs, -æ-)
[f. plate n. + glass n.]
a. A fine quality of thick glass, cast in plates, used for mirrors, shop-windows, or in any position where an undistorted view, great strength, or the exclusion of sound, is desired. Also attrib.
| 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Glass, It is from this adulteration that those threads and other defects in plate glass arise. 1766 Entick London IV. 398 The other remarkable places..are..a plate glasshouse, a bottle glasshouse. 1795 Gentl. Mag. LXV. ii. 961 Mr. Harman's seat..had a great number of plate-glass windows broke. 1807 T. Thomson Chem. (ed. 3) II. 508 The plate glass is poured melted upon a table covered with a sheet of copper. The plate, as cast, is about an inch thick; but it is ground down to the proper..thinness, and then polished. 1860 All Year Round No. 67. 397 The partition which separated my own office from our general outer office,..was of thick plate-glass. |
b. spec. (also with capital initial) used attrib. to denote any of the new British universities founded in the 1960s; also passing into adj., of or pertaining to such a university.
| 1968 M. Beloff Plateglass Universities i. 20 The self⁓confident and colourful character of the Plateglass universities reflects the spirit of the high Macmillan age. 1968 ― in Encounter May 14/1 The New University explosion of the last decade has an element of illusion about it... Only seven..are new institutions... The difference between the Plateglass Universities and both their predecessors and upgraded successors was that in them alone was there the opportunity for pure experiment. 1968 Economist 1 June 47/1 Of the non-Oxbridge successful candidates, only four came from the new generation of plate-glass universities. 1971 C. Driver Exploding University i. iv. 187 Some time ago a Plate⁓glass professor suggested that a new university's potential for innovation fades after about three years. 1973 J. H. M. Scott Dons & Students ii. 17 Though the new universities have been dubbed ‘plate-glass’..they have no monopoly of that material. 1979 Times Higher Educ. Suppl. 23 Nov. 27/5 Among universities, such labels as Oxbridge, Red Brick, Green Field and Plate Glass define origins and location rather than reputations. |
Hence plate-ˈglasser, a student or graduate of one of the new British universities.
| 1968 Economist 1 June 47/1 A man from Aberystwyth got into the Foreign Service, along with two plate-glassers, one red-brick man, one Dubliner, nine from Oxford and eleven from Cambridge. |