The performers all wore black _gowns_ with sleeves large enough to hold me in, and shouted and swung their arms, till they looked like so many Methodist ministers just ordained.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 111.
Saw them ... clothed in _gowns_ of satin, Or silk or cotton, black as souls benighted.-- All, save the _gowns_, was startling, splendid, tragic, But gowns on men have lost their wonted magic. _Childe Harvard_, p. 26.
The door swings open--and--he comes! behold him Wrapt in his mantling _gown_, that round him flows Waving, as Cæsar's toga did enfold him.--_Ibid._, p. 36.
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.
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_.
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.
GRACE. In English universities, an act, vote, or decree of the government of the institution.--_Webster_.
"All _Graces_ (as the legislative measures proposed by the Senate are termed) have to be submitted first to the Caput, each member of which has an absolute veto on the grace. If it passes the Caput, it is then publicly recited in both houses, [the regent and non-regent,] and at a subsequent meeting voted on, first in the Non-Regent House, and then in the other. If it passes both, it becomes valid."--_Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 283.
GRADUATE. To honor with a degree or diploma, in a college or university; to confer a degree on; as, to _graduate_ a master of arts.--_Wotton_.