break gates

English

break gates (third-person singular simple present breaks gates, present participle breaking gates, simple past broke gates, past participle broken gates)

(UK, universities, idiomatic, dated) To enter an Oxford or Cambridge college enclosure after the hour to which a student has been restricted.
- 1868, “Willowstoke”, in The Light blue, a Cambridge university magazine, volume 3, page 210:
  He broke gates to-day; and then there was something that Grove did'nt seem inclined to be very explicit about.
- 2000, Joseph Romilly, ‎M. E. Bury, ‎J. D. Pickles, Romilly's Cambridge Diary 1848-1864:
  From 12½ to past 2 at a College meeting: we rusticated 'sine die', an ill-conducted idle reckless vagabond named Moore — he had been gated, but he broke gates, shirked Sunday Evening Chapel & went to a Hotel to drink & smoke till they shut up the house & turned him out: —we did a good deal of Bursarial work.
- 2011, Peter Linehan, St John's College, Cambridge: A History, page 304:
  Students were frequently caught by the proctors and bulldogs for breaking gates ( i.e. going absent without leave ) .
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break,‎ gates.
- 1846, Harry Hieover, Stable Talk and Table Talk, Or, Spectacles for Young Sportsmen, page 32:
  I have had horses break gates with me , and that both with and without getting a fall ; but candour must make me allow I never rode at one contemplating such a result ;