grove

the groves of academe

Institutions of higher learning, such as colleges and universities, or higher learning in general. I've spent my whole career in the groves of academe, so transitioning to the corporate sector will be difficult.

See also: academe, grove, of

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

groves of Academe

the academic community. literary

This phrase alludes to the Roman poet Horace's Epistles, in which he says: Atque inter silvas Academi quaerere verum ‘and seek for truth in the groves of Academe’. The Academia was a grove near ancient Athens where a number of philosophers, Plato among them, taught their pupils.

See also: academe, grove, of

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

groves of academe

An institution of higher education (college or university), or those associated with it. This term refers to an actual place in ancient Greece, the Grove of Academus, an olive grove outside Athens presented by the Spartans to the Athenian hero Achilles, who had helped to rescue Helen. About 387 b.c. Plato had a house and garden adjoining this place, where he would meet with his students, and his school of philosophy came to be called, after it, Academia. Years later, the Roman poet Horace referred to it (Epistles, 20 b.c.): “To seek for truth in the groves of Academe”; and John Milton also referred to it in Paradise Regained (1671). Today the term is often used ironically, as by Mary McCarthy, who made it the title of her satirical novel The Groves of Academe (1953).

See also: academe, grove, of

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer