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"Blighty" is aBritish Englishslang term forGreat Britain, or often specificallyEngland.[1][2][3] Though it was used throughout the 1800s in theIndian subcontinent to mean an English or British visitor, it was first used during theBoer War in the specific meaning of homeland for the English or the British.[4][1] FromWorld War I and afterward, that use of the term became widespread.[4]
The word ultimately derives from thePersian wordviletī, (from a regionalHindustani language with the use of b replacing v) meaning 'foreign',[4] which more specifically came to mean 'European', and 'British; English' during the time of theBritish Raj.[5] The Bengali wordbiletī is a loan ofIndian Persianvilāyatī (ولایاتی), fromvilāyat (ولایت) meaning 'Iran' and later 'Europe' or 'Britain',[6] ultimately from Arabicwilāyahولاية meaning 'state, province'.
The term subsequently gained an ironic connotation in its closeness to the English wordblight, which means "epidemic."[2]
Blighty is commonly used as a term of endearment by the expatriate British community or those on holiday to refer to home. InHobson-Jobson, an 1886 historical dictionary ofAnglo-Indian words,Henry Yule andArthur Coke Burnell explained that the word came to be used inBritish India for several things the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato andsoda water.
During the First World War, "Dear Old Blighty" was a common sentimental reference, suggesting a longing for home by soldiers in thetrenches. The term was particularly used byWorld War I poets such asWilfred Owen andSiegfried 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 sometimesself-inflicted.[7]
An early example of the usage of a derivative of theArabicwilāyah being used to refer to Britain is after diplomatI'tisam-ud-Din returned from Britain back to the Mughal Empire. The locals nicknamed himBilayet Munshi due to him being the firstSouth Asian (c. 1765) to travel to what was known as the Bilayet.[8]
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 theWar Office, theAdmiralty and the Red Cross, and subsidised through donations and sales to the general public.[9] The magazine was revived in 1939 and continued until 1958.[10]
In his First World War autobiographyGood-Bye to All That (1929), the writerRobert Graves attributes the termBlitey to theHindustani word for "home."[11] He writes: "The men are pessimistic but cheerful. They all talk about getting a 'cushy' one to send them back to 'Blitey'."
Themusic hall artisteVesta 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).[12] The song is sung byCicely Courtneidge in the 1962 filmThe L-Shaped Room.[13] The term was also referenced in the song "All American Alien Boy" byIan Hunter ("I'm just a whitey from Blighty"), from the 1976album of the same name.[14] FolksingerIan Robb's albumRose and Crown features a topical parody of the traditional song "Maggie May", about theFalklands 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 onBBC Radio 4 between 1988 and 1992. It was a parody of contemporary life in Britain (specifically during the premiership ofMargaret Thatcher), as reflected in the fictional small village of "Little Blighty".
UKTV operated a digitaltelevision channel calledBlighty that opened in February 2009 and closed on 5 July 2013. The subscription channel, which concentrated on British-made programming, was replaced by aFreeview channel calledDrama.[15]
in theCollins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014; and inRandom HouseKernerman Webster's College Dictionary
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. TheUrdu 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.
