blighty
/ˈblaɪti/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.08 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
Great Britain, Britain, or England, especially as viewed from abroad.
name
A locality in the Edward River council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.
noun
Alternative form of Blighty.
Example Sentences
- "Before I knew it, 8 August had come around and our holiday was over. As my lovely little family headed for the airport to jump ship back to Blighty, I was on the road again with fresh legs."
- "Living in the US, I have always seized every opportunity to insist things are better in Blighty. But now both countries look ludicrous[.]"
- "The ones who did get a good Blighty were returned to England."
- "Well maybe I'll have luck this time in the shape of a decent little “Blighty” as its^([sic]) the only way out of it for a while."
- ""Talk about Blighties——” He lifted his bandaged arm."
- "With such delights awaiting them only a few miles to the rear, it's no wonder that men prayed for a “blighty” – a small wound that would not incapacitate them for life, but would get them out of the line for a month or even a week. . . . a stray bullet pierced Moore's left foot. Moore cried out, not with pain, but with delight. ¶ “Oh,” he shouted, “it's a beauty, Vic! What a present from the Red Devil! It's a Blighty, I'll bet a dollar.”"
Etymology
Corruption of the Hindustani विलायती (vilāytī) / وِلایَتی (vilāyatī, “foreign”), which is related to Arabic ولاية (wilāyah, “state, province”), whence also, through Turkish, vilayet. Sir Henry Yule and Arthur C. Burnell explained in their Anglo-Indian dictionary, Hobson-Jobson, published in 1886, that the word was used in the names of several kinds of exotic foreign things, especially those that the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato, विलायती बैंगन (vilāytī baiṅgan, literally “foreign aubergine”), and especially to soda water, which was commonly called विलायती पानी (vilāytī pānī, literally “foreign water”). Blighty was the inevitable British soldier’s corruption of it. But it only came into common use as a term for Britain at the beginning of the First World War in France about 1915. It turns up in popular songs "There’s a ship that’s bound for Blighty", "We wish we were in Blighty", and "Take me back to dear old Blighty, put me on the train for London town", and in Wilfred Owen's poems, as well as many other places. The sense of a minor wound comes from attributive use of the noun, as in “a Blighty wound,” “a Blighty one,” 1916. In modern Australian usage, Old – a sentimental reference to Britain, as in Old Country and Old Dart – was added to give Old Blighty.