In Britain, a redbrick university is one of the big city universities founded in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century — Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and others — as opposed to the ancient ones, Oxford and Cambridge. The name comes from their buildings, which were put up in the red brick of the industrial age instead of old pale stone. There is class feeling underneath it. When the word appeared, it was used slightly down the nose, meaning 'not the real thing'; those universities were built for the sons of factory towns rather than for gentlemen. Today it is mostly neutral, and often said with respect — these are strong, serious universities. You can also use it as a noun for such a university ('she went to a redbrick'), and, quite separately, as a plain adjective for anything built of red bricks: a redbrick house, a redbrick wall. It is written redbrick, red-brick or red brick; all are seen.

紅磚大學（英國十九世紀末、二十世紀初創立的城市型大學，相對於牛津劍橋）；也可單純指「紅磚造的」。