View source for Blighty

{{Short description|British slang term for Britain or England}}
{{about|the slang term for Britain}}
[[File:Blighty.jpg|thumb|A [[World War I]] example of [[trench art]]: a [[Shell (projectile)|shell case]] engraved with a picture of two wounded [[Tommy Atkins|Tommies]] nearing the [[White Cliffs of Dover]] with the inscription "Blighty!"]]
[[File:The British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (IWM Q 2549).jpg|thumb|British troops posing with the wreckage of a German light railway engine, with the humorous scribbling on the engine "[[Leave (military)|Leave]] train any more for blighty" (22 June 1917)]]

"'''Blighty'''" is a [[British English]] [[slang]] term for [[Great Britain]], or often specifically [[England]].<ref name="bbcamerica.com">{{cite web |url=https://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/08/brits-call-u-k-blighty |title=Why Do the Brits Call the U.K. 'Blighty'? |website=Anglophenia, [[BBC America]] |access-date=16 April 2025}}</ref><ref name=oxford/><ref>{{cite web |title=blighty |url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blighty |website=The Free Dictionary |quote= in the ''[[Collins English Dictionary]]'' – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014; and in [[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary|Random House]] ''Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary'' |access-date=16 April 2025}}</ref> 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 the British.<ref name="oedbbc"/><ref name="bbcamerica.com"/> From [[World War I]] and afterward, that use of the term became widespread.<ref name="oedbbc"/>

== Etymology ==
The word ultimately derives from the [[Persian language|Persian]] word {{transliteration|ur|viletī}}, (from a regional [[Hindustani language]] with the use of b replacing v) meaning 'foreign',<ref name="oedbbc"/> which more specifically came to mean 'European', and 'British; English' during the time of the [[British Raj]].<ref>{{cite web |title=World Wide Words: Blighty |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bli1.htm |website=World Wide Words |access-date=1 January 2024 |language=en-gb}}</ref> The Bengali word {{transl|bn|biletī}} is a loan of [[Indian Persian]] {{transliteration|fa|vilāyatī}} ({{lang|fa|ولایاتی}}), from {{transliteration|fa|vilāyat}} ({{lang|fa|ولایت}}) meaning 'Iran' and later 'Europe' or 'Britain',<ref>"ولاية" in F. Steingass, ''A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary'', 1892, p. 1480.</ref> ultimately from Arabic {{transliteration|ar|[[wilayah|wilāyah]]}} {{lang|ar| ولاية{{lrm}}}} meaning 'state, province'.

The term subsequently gained an ironic connotation in its closeness to the English word ''blight'', which means "epidemic."<ref name=oxford>{{cite web |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/blighty_n?tl=true |title=Blighty noun & adjective |publisher=[[Oxford English Dictionary]]|access-date=16 April 2025}}</ref>

==Context==
Blighty is commonly used as a term of endearment by the expatriate British community or those on holiday to refer to home. In ''[[Hobson-Jobson]]'', an 1886 historical dictionary of [[Anglo-Indian]] words, [[Henry Yule]] and [[Arthur Coke Burnell]] explained that the word came to be used in [[British India]] for several things the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato and [[soda water]].

During the First World War, "Dear Old Blighty" was a common sentimental reference, suggesting a longing for home by soldiers in the [[trench warfare|trenches]]. The term was particularly used by [[:Category:World War I poets|World War I poets]] such as [[Wilfred Owen]] and [[Siegfried Sassoon]]. During that war, a "[[Blighty wound]]" – a wound serious enough to require recuperation away from the trenches but not serious enough to kill or maim the victim – was hoped for by many, and sometimes [[Self-inflicted wounds in the military|self-inflicted]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/blightywounds.htm |title=Blighty Wounds|website=Firstworldwar.com |access-date=26 March 2007}}</ref>

==Usage==
[[File:The British Army in France 1939-40 O2262.jpg|thumb|right|British soldiers reading copies of ''Blighty'' magazine outside their dugout in France, December 1939.]]
An early example of the usage of a derivative of the [[Arabic]] {{Transliteration|ar|wilāyah}} being used to refer to Britain is after diplomat [[I'tisam-ud-Din]] returned from Britain back to the Mughal Empire. The locals nicknamed him ''Bilayet Munshi'' due to him being the first [[South Asian]] (c. 1765) to travel to what was known as the Bilayet.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.peepaltreepress.com/authors/mirza-itesamuddin |title=Mirza I'tesamuddin |website=Peepal Tree Press |access-date=5 October 2022}}</ref>

[[Parade (British magazine)|''Blighty'']], a humorous weekly magazine, was issued free to British troops during the First World War. It contained short stories, poems, cartoons, paintings, and drawings, with contributions from men on active service. It was distributed by the [[War Office]], the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] and the Red Cross, and subsidised through donations and sales to the general public.<ref>{{cite web |website=Digital.nls.uk |title=Blighty, Christmas 1917|url= http://digital.nls.uk/74461232 |publisher=The War Office, The Admiralty, The Red Cross |access-date=13 February 2014}}</ref> The magazine was revived in 1939 and continued until 1958.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.magforum.com/mens/mensmagazinesatoz1.htm#888 |title=Men's magazines: an A–Z - Blighty |website=Magforum.com |access-date=20 March 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131111101645/http://www.magforum.com/mens/mensmagazinesatoz1.htm#888 |archive-date=11 November 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In his First World War autobiography ''[[Good-Bye to All That]]'' (1929), the writer [[Robert Graves]] attributes the term ''Blitey'' to the [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] word for "home."<ref>{{cite book |title=Good-Bye to All That |publisher=[[Penguin Modern Classics]] |orig-year=1929 |year=1957 |page=94 }}</ref> He writes: "The men are pessimistic but cheerful. They all talk about getting a '[[wikt:cushy|cushy]]' one to send them back to 'Blitey'."

The [[music hall]] artiste [[Vesta Tilley]] had a hit in 1916 with the song "I'm Glad I've Got a Bit of a Blighty One" (1916), in which she played a soldier delighted to have been wounded and in hospital. "When I think about my dugout," she sang, "where I dare not stick my mug out. ... I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one". Another music hall hit was "[[Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty]]" (1917).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://firstworldwar.com/audio/takemebacktodearoldblighty.htm |title=Vintage Audio - Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty |publisher=First World War.com |date=22 August 2009 |access-date=27 June 2013}}</ref> The song is sung by [[Cicely Courtneidge]] in the 1962 film ''[[The L-Shaped Room]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/l/L-Shaped-Room.php |title=Filming Locations for Bryan Forbes' Sixties classic The L-Shaped Room in Notting Hill. |website=Movie-locations.com |access-date=9 June 2018}}</ref> The term was also referenced in the song "All American Alien Boy" by [[Ian Hunter (singer)|Ian Hunter]] ("I'm just a whitey from Blighty"), from the 1976 [[All American Alien Boy|album of the same name]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hunter-mott.com/lyrics/aaab.html |title=Lyrics to "All American Alien Boy" (single version) |website=Hunter-mott.com |access-date=9 June 2018}}</ref> Folksinger [[Ian Robb]]'s album ''Rose and Crown'' features a topical parody of the traditional song "[[Maggie May (folk song)|Maggie May]]", about the [[Falklands War]]. The song contains the lines: "When I get back to Blighty, I'll give thanks to The Almighty / Whether Maggie's little war is lost or won".

"[[Little Blighty on the Down]]" was a satirical radio comedy series broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]] between 1988 and 1992. It was a parody of contemporary life in Britain (specifically during the premiership of [[Margaret Thatcher]]), as reflected in the fictional small village of "Little Blighty".

[[UKTV]] operated a digital [[television channel]] called [[Blighty (TV channel)|Blighty]] that opened in February 2009 and closed on 5 July 2013. The subscription channel, which concentrated on British-made programming, was replaced by a [[Freeview (UK)|Freeview]] channel called [[Drama (British TV channel)|Drama]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/blighty-closes-as-drama-opens-for-uktv/5057663.article |title=Blighty closes as Drama opens for UKTV |last1=White |first1=Peter |date=24 June 2013 |work=[[Broadcast (magazine)|Broadcast]] |publisher=Media Business Insight Limited |access-date=20 March 2014}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="oedbbc">{{cite web |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26277732 |title= The English expressions coined in WW1 |date= 21 February 2014 |first= Kate |last=Wild |work= BBC Magazine| access-date=22 February 2014| quote= After the introduction of conscription in 1916, the distinction between soldiers and civilians became less clear, and vocabulary passed readily from one group to the other. This is the case with ... ''Blighty''. The [[Urdu language|Urdu]] words vilayat ("inhabited country", specifically Europe or Britain) and vilayati ("foreign", or "British, English, European") were borrowed by the British in the 19th Century.... But it was the regional variant bilayati - rendered as Blighty in English and meaning "Britain, England, home" - which really took off in Britain. Although it was first used during the Boer war, it was not until WW1 that Blighty spread widely and developed new meanings.}}</ref>
}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|Blighty}}
*{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Blighty |short=x}}
*[http://digital.nls.uk/75253030 Blighty and Sea Pie] from the [[National Library of Scotland]], with links to several issues of the magazine

[[Category:British slang]]
[[Category:United Kingdom in World War I]]
[[Category:Boer Wars]]
[[Category:English words and phrases]]