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What (who) is ivory tower - definition
METAPHOR
Ivory-tower; Intellectual elitism; Ivory towers; Ivory Tower; Turris eburnea
![The ivory towers of [[King's College London]]'s [[Maughan Library]]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Kclssa.jpg?width=200 "The ivory towers of [[King's College London]]'s [[Maughan Library]]")
![An Ivory Tower at [[St. John's College, Cambridge]]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/St John's College Chapel Court, Cambridge, UK - Diliff.jpg?width=200 "An Ivory Tower at [[St. John's College, Cambridge]]")
![''Hawksmoor Towers'', [[All Souls College, Oxford]]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/UK-2014-Oxford-All Souls College 03.jpg?width=200 "''Hawksmoor Towers'', [[All Souls College, Oxford]]")
ivory tower
(ivory towers)
If you describe someone as living in an ivory tower, you mean that they have no knowledge or experience of the practical problems of everyday life.
They don't really, in their ivory towers, understand how pernicious drug crime is.
N-COUNT: usu prep N, N n [disapproval]
Ivory tower
An ivory tower is a metaphorical place—or an atmosphere—where people are happily cut off from the rest of the world in favor of their own pursuits, usually mental and esoteric ones. From the 19th century, it has been used to designate an environment of intellectual pursuit disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life.
ivory tower
¦ noun a state of privileged seclusion or separation from the facts and practicalities of the real world.
Origin
early 20th cent.: translating Fr. tour d'ivoire, used by the 19th-cent. French writer Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve.
Wikipedia
Ivory tower
An ivory tower is a metaphorical place—or an atmosphere—where people are happily cut off from the rest of the world in favor of their own pursuits, usually mental and esoteric ones. From the 19th century, it has been used to designate an environment of intellectual pursuit disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. Most contemporary uses of the term refer to academia or the college and university systems in many countries.
The term originated from the Biblical Song of Songs (7:4) with a different meaning and was later used as an epithet for Mary.
Examples of use of ivory tower
1. The ivory tower brigade has thrown down the gauntlet.
2. Excellence in the ivory tower did not filter through.
3. The CICA people sit in an ivory tower and number–crunch.
4. I do not believe that a researcher can live outside society in an ivory tower.
5. Advertisement "They‘re in their ivory tower, they think they know everything.