Rustication is a term used at Oxbridge to mean being sent down or expelled temporarily. The term derives from the Latin word rus, countryside, to indicate that a student has been sent back to their family in the country,[1] or from medieval Latin rustici, meaning "heathens or barbarians" (missus in rusticos, "sent among ..."). A student who has been rusticated may not enter any of the university buildings, or even travel to within a certain distance of them.
The term is used in British public schools (private schools), and was used in the United States during the 19th century, though it has been superseded by the term "suspension."
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Notable Britons who were rusticated during their time at University include:
In the 2009 feature film Morris: A Life with Bells On the team Milsham Morris are "Formally Rusticated" from a fictional Morris Dancing governing body known as 'The Morris Circle', for an apparent infringement of the governing body rules.
The term also was used in the United States in the 19th century. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, in The Gilded Age, have a character explain the term:
In a story in the August 1858 Atlantic Monthly,[8] a character reminisces:
Kevin Starr[9] writes of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. that:
A biographer[10] refers to one of James Russell Lowell's college letters as "written while he was at Concord because rusticated."
In the Bollywood movie 3 Idiots the Headmaster of the Imperial College of Engineering said to 3 students, "You've been rusticated," after he discovered they stole a copy of the final exam .
George Clooney refers to his "rusticated friend" in the film O Brother Where Art Thou.