On Saturday evenings, Sundays, and Saints' days, the students wear surplices instead of their gowns, and very innocent and exemplary they look in them.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 21.
2. One who wears a gown.
And here, I think, I may properly introduce a very singular gallant, a sort of mongrel between town and gown,—I mean a bibliopola, or (as the vulgar have it) a bookseller.—The Student, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. II. p. 226.
GOWNMAN, GOWNSMAN. One whose professional habit is a gown, as a divine or lawyer, and particularly a member of an English university.—Webster.
The gownman learned.—Pope.
Oft has some fair inquirer bid me say,
What tasks, what sports beguile the gownsman's day.
The College, in Blackwood's Mag., May, 1849.
For if townsmen by our influence are so enlightened, what must we gownsmen be ourselves?—The Student, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. I. p. 56.
Nor must it be supposed that the gownsmen are thin, study-worn, consumptive-looking individuals.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 5.
See CAP.
GRACE. In English universities, an act, vote, or decree of the government of the institution.—Webster.