Empty Champagne Bottles

Fellow-commoners at Cambridge used to be so called, their academical dress being a gaudy purple and silver gown, resembling the silver foil round the neck of a champagne bottle. Very few of these wealthy magnates took honours.

The nobleman’s gown was silk.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.