subs. (military).—1. The Eighty-Fifth Foot. [This regiment was remodelled in 1812, after a long sequence of court-martials: when the officers were removed, and others set in their room.]
1871. Chambers’s Journal, 23 Dec., p. 803. ‘ELEGANT EXTRACTS’ was the name given to the 85th on its being reformed with officers picked out from those of other regiments.
2. (Cambridge University).—Students who, though ‘plucked,’ were still given their degrees. A line was drawn below the poll-list, and those allowed to pass were nicknamed the ELEGANT EXTRACTS. There was a similar limbo in the honour-list, called the Gulf: for ‘Between them (in the poll) and us (in the honour-lists) there is a great gulf fixed.’
