Roedean is a famous, expensive private girls’ school in England, on the cliffs near Brighton. In British English, people often say “public school” for this kind of old, fee-paying school — which sounds backwards if you think public means free and open to everyone. The name has long stood for a certain kind of wealthy, well-spoken English girl, the way Eton stands for boys, though actually far fewer people have heard of Roedean than of Eton. You will meet it in novels, newspapers, and jokes about posh schooling more than in ordinary talk. It is a proper name: always a capital R, and it means that school (named after the place), not private girls’ schools in general.

Roedean（英國布萊頓附近一所學費昂貴的女子私校）