Blighty

This article is about the slang term for Britain. For other uses, see Blighty (disambiguation).
A World War I example of trench art: a shell case engraved with a picture of two wounded Tommies nearing the White Cliffs of Dover with the inscription "Blighty!"

"Blighty" is a British English slang term for Great Britain, or often specifically England.[1][2][3] Though it was used throughout the 1800s in the Indian subcontinent to mean an English or British visitor, it was first used during the Boer War in the specific meaning of homeland for the English or British,[4][1] and it was not until World War I that use of the term became widespread.[4]

  1. ^ a b "Why Do the Brits Call the U.K. 'Blighty'?"". Anglophenia, BBC America. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  2. ^ "Definition of Blighty - Oxford Dictionaries (British & World English)". oxforddictionaries.com. 12 July 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-07-12. Retrieved 27 February 2016 – via web.archive.org.
  3. ^ "blighty". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 27 February 2016. in the Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014; and in Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference oedbbc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).