:Blighty

The word ultimately derives from the Persian word {{transliteration|ur|viletī}}, (from a regional Hindustani language with the use of b replacing v) meaning 'foreign', which more specifically came to mean 'European', and 'British; English' during the time of the British Raj.{{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}} The Bengali word 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',"ولاية" in F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary, 1892, p. 1480. ultimately from Arabic {{transliteration|ar|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."{{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}}

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 trenches. The term was particularly used by 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.{{cite web |url= http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/blightywounds.htm |title=Blighty Wounds|website=Firstworldwar.com |access-date=26 March 2007}}

File:The British Army in France 1939-40 O2262.jpg

An early example of the usage of a derivative of the Arabic {{transl|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.{{cite web |url=https://www.peepaltreepress.com/authors/mirza-itesamuddin |title=Mirza I'tesamuddin |website=Peepal Tree Press |access-date=5 October 2022}}

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 Admiralty and the Red Cross, and subsidised through donations and sales to the general public.{{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}} The magazine was revived in 1939 and continued until 1958.{{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}}

In his First World War autobiography Good-Bye to All That (1929), the writer Robert Graves attributes the term Blitey to the Hindustani word for "home."{{cite book |title=Good-Bye to All That |publisher=Penguin Modern Classics |orig-year=1929 |year=1957 |page=94 }} He writes: "The men are pessimistic but cheerful. They all talk about getting a '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).{{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}} The song is sung by Cicely Courtneidge in the 1962 film The L-Shaped Room.{{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}} The term was also referenced in the song "All American Alien Boy" by Ian Hunter ("I'm just a whitey from Blighty"), from the 1976 album of the same name.{{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}} Folksinger Ian Robb's album Rose and Crown features a topical parody of the traditional 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".

UKTV operated a digital television channel called 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 channel called Drama.{{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 |publisher=Media Business Insight Limited |access-date=20 March 2014}}

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{{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 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.}}

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{{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