From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishivory towerˌivory ˈtower noun [countable] a place or situation where you are separated from the difficulties of ordinary life and so are unable to understand them, used especially to describe a college or university → academia an academic in an ivory tower
Examples from the Corpus
ivory tower• I think you live in an ivory tower.• Departmental barriers and ivory tower attitudes are detrimental to good results.• For heaven's sake, you've been breathing the rarefied air of the ivory tower for as long as I can remember.• I argued in Chapter 5 that the image of the ivory tower in no way describes the contemporary position of higher education.• Now to return to my dusty library at the top of the ivory tower. 