"university of life" meaning in All languages combined

See university of life on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: En-au-university of life.ogg Forms: universities of life [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|universities of life}} university of life (plural universities of life)
  1. (idiomatic, chiefly UK and Ireland) The real world as a source of instruction, as opposed to a formal education. Tags: Ireland, UK, idiomatic Synonyms: school of hard knocks, university of the streets Related terms: street smarts
    Sense id: en-university_of_life-en-noun-9m~2Om-F Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, Irish English, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "universities of life",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "universities of life"
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      "expansion": "university of life (plural universities of life)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I learned all I need to know from the university of life, not from books.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:",
          "text": "[BEAUFOY:] We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university.\nBLOOM: (Indistinctly) University of life.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The real world as a source of instruction, as opposed to a formal education."
      ],
      "id": "en-university_of_life-en-noun-9m~2Om-F",
      "links": [
        [
          "real world",
          "real world"
        ],
        [
          "instruction",
          "instruction"
        ],
        [
          "formal",
          "formal"
        ],
        [
          "education",
          "education"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, chiefly UK and Ireland) The real world as a source of instruction, as opposed to a formal education."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "street smarts"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "school of hard knocks"
        },
        {
          "word": "university of the streets"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c3/En-au-university_of_life.ogg/En-au-university_of_life.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/En-au-university_of_life.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "university of life"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "universities of life",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "universities of life"
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      "expansion": "university of life (plural universities of life)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "street smarts"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Irish English",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I learned all I need to know from the university of life, not from books.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:",
          "text": "[BEAUFOY:] We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university.\nBLOOM: (Indistinctly) University of life.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The real world as a source of instruction, as opposed to a formal education."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "real world",
          "real world"
        ],
        [
          "instruction",
          "instruction"
        ],
        [
          "formal",
          "formal"
        ],
        [
          "education",
          "education"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, chiefly UK and Ireland) The real world as a source of instruction, as opposed to a formal education."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-university of life.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c3/En-au-university_of_life.ogg/En-au-university_of_life.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/En-au-university_of_life.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "school of hard knocks"
    },
    {
      "word": "university of the streets"
    }
  ],
  "word": "university of life"
}

Download raw JSONL data for university of life meaning in All languages combined (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.