Terminology

  • ASNaC — Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
  • The Backs — The backs of the riverside colleges, where the river runs between the colleges and Queens’ Road
  • Bedder — A cleaner who empties your bins, cleans your room and gives you fresh bedding. No Newnham accommodation apart from the Dorothy Garrod Building has bedders.
  • Bop — Party
  • Cam — Abbreviated way of saying Cambridge
  • Come up — to come to Cambridge
  • Compsci — (pronounced Comp-ski) Computer Science Tripos
  • DoS — Director of Studies
  • Ents — Short for “Entertainments”, refers to the entertainment put on by the JCR Ents team.
  • Freps — Short for “Freshers Reps”. Members of the JCR Committee in charge of making sure the freshers have a good time and are looked after well.
  • Go down — to leave Cambridge
  • Gyp room — Small kitchen shared by students
  • Hall — The place where we eat (other colleges often call this the buttery or cafeteria). Also refers to the hall where formal dinners take place (since it’s the same place).
  • JCR –– Junior Common Room. This is the term for the common room in clough, the general term for all undergraduate students as well as a shortened term for the JCR committee. Similarly, there is an MCR (mature) for graduate students, and SCR (the fellows), but no one really calls them that.
  • Kikis – nightclub that students generally tend to go to on Sunday nights, hence ‘Skikis.’
  • Mathmo — Student studying mathematics
  • MCR –– Master Common Room. The term for the graduate common room, the general term for all graduate students as well as the term for the MCR committee.
  • MML — Modern and Medieval Languages
  • Natsci — (pronounced Nat-ski) Natural Sciences Tripos
  • Pidge — Pigeonhole. Found in the Plodge.
  • Plodge — Porters’ Lodge.
  • Read — to study, as in reading Natural Sciences.
  • Revs – a nightclub that students usually go to on Wednesdays, hence the term ‘Wevs.’
  • UL — University Library