Blighty

For the town in Australia, see Blighty, New South Wales

Blighty is a British English slang term for Great Britain, deriving from the Hindustani word bilāyatī (विलायती), meaning "foreign", related to the Arabic word wilayat, meaning a kingdom or province. [See the article on the Arabic word "Wilayah", related to the term "vilayet" used for provinces of the former Turkish empire, as well as Turkestan.] The term was more common in the later days of the British Raj, but can now be considered self-consciously archaic and, when used by some speakers younger than the dissolution of the British Empire, can be intended in a somewhat ironic manner. It is more commonly used as a term of endearment by the expatriate British community, or those on holiday to refer to home.

According to World Wide Words, Sir Henry Yule and Arthur C Burnell explained in their Anglo-Indian dictionary, Hobson-Jobson, published in 1886, that the word came to be used, in British India, for several things the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato (bilayati baingan) and soda water, which was commonly called bilayati pani, or "foreign water".

During World War I, "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 welcomed by many victims, and often self-inflicted.

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", 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", which was sampled, in an ironic manner, at the beginning of "The Queen Is Dead" by The Smiths.

Blighty was the name of a weekly magazine published in London from 1939 to 1958 for young men, and possibly aimed at servicemen. competing against magazines such as Titbits and Reveille It was continued for another year as lighty Parade or Parade and Blighty. Another humorous paper of the same name was published in London from 1916 to 1920, according to the British Library catalogue.