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  • blighty
    blighty
    noun
    Often Blighty Britain, or specifically England, as one's home or native land.
  • Blighty
    Blighty
    noun
    England; home
Synonyms

blighty

American  
[blahy-tee] / ˈblaɪ ti /

noun

British Slang.
  • blighties
    plural
  1. Often Blighty Britain, or specifically England, as one's home or native land.

    We're sailing for old Blighty tomorrow.

  2. a wound or furlough permitting a soldier to be sent back to Britain from the front.

  3. military leave.


Blighty 1 British  
/ ˈblaɪtɪ /

noun

  1. England; home

    1. Also called: a blighty one. a slight wound that causes the recipient to be sent home to England

    2. leave in England

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

blighty 2 British  
/ ˈblaɪtɪ /

noun

  1. another name for white-eye

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

His 80,000-word account of the experience was found in an online auction won by amateur social-historian David Wilkins, who has now published it under the title Blighty or Bust.

From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2024

Not far away is an earlier housing development that is even more redolent of Blighty: Foxhall Village.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2022

Our favorite ex-royals book it out of Old Blighty in search of fairer shores in the new ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie “Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2021

Sometimes a Britisher arrives here with a title and is purchased by a young maiden with much money, possibly several millions, and he takes her back to 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

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