blighty
noun
Often Blighty Britain, or specifically England, as one's home or native land.
blighty
American
[blahy-tee]
/ ˈblaɪ ti /
noun
British Slang.
-
blighties
plural
-
Often Blighty Britain, or specifically England, as one's home or native land.
We're sailing for old Blighty tomorrow.
-
a wound or furlough permitting a soldier to be sent back to Britain from the front.
-
military leave.
Blighty
1
British
/ ˈblaɪtɪ /
noun
-
England; home
-
-
Also called: a blighty one. a slight wound that causes the recipient to be sent home to England
-
leave in England
-
blighty
2
British
/ ˈblaɪtɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of blighty
First recorded in 1885–90; from Hindi bilāyatī “the country (i.e., Great Britain),” variant of wilāyatī vilayet
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Next up for Westwood is 49-year-old Richard Bland of England, whom he has known for 30 years dating to their time on the junior circuit in blighty.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 24, 2022
A blighty wound was a wound sufficiently serious to merit being sent home, and one might also be hit by a blighty bullet inflicting such a wound.
From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2014
Therefore Lord Elgin was quite within his rights to bring them back to blighty and the Greeks can moan all they like but the marbles are not leaving the museum while I'm in charge.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 25, 2010
It was like coming out of the trenches to blighty and peace on earth.
From Time Magazine Archive
Müller explains that he has a flesh wound in his thigh; a good blighty.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
Those cameras have spread his fame far beyond Blighty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
The contrast he sought to draw with a gloomy Blighty was not subtle.
From BBC ● Dec. 18, 2024
Not far away is an earlier housing development that is even more redolent of Blighty: Foxhall Village.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2022
Many folks come here from Blighty to break into America and give up if it doesn’t happen in a year or two.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2022
Except at the Scala, where the pictures used to be good and dull, most of the movie theatres are a little impossible in Blighty.
From Over Here Impressions of America by a British officer by Hector MacQuarrie
Past our battery position there was passing a few prisoners and a procession of wounded—but mostly "blighties"; and I saw one sergeant with a German helmet.
From Over Here Impressions of America by a British officer by Hector MacQuarrie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
