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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.
The precise origin is the subject of some debate, but it is known to have been used as early as 1743. Rudyard Kipling published the poem "Tommy" (part of the Barrack Room Ballads) in 1892 and in 1893 the music hall song "Private Tommy Atkins" was published with words by Henry Hamilton and music by S. Potter.
This article lists a number of common generic forms in place names in the British Isles, their meanings and some examples of their use.The study of place names is called toponymy; for a more detailed examination of this subject in relation to British and Irish place names, refer to Toponymy in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
A country adjective describes something as being from that country, for example, "Italian cuisine" is "cuisine of Italy". A country demonym denotes the people or the inhabitants of or from there; for example, "Germans" are people of or from Germany. Demonyms are given in plural forms.
The principal substrate of British toponyms is thus Celtic in origin, and more specifically Brittonic ('British'), ancestral to modern Welsh and more distantly related to the Goidelic languages of Ireland and Scotland. The oldest place-names in England appear to be the names of rivers, many of which are interpreted as being Brittonic in origin.
The country which was initially called (County of the) Ardennes named itself after its homonym capital city founded in 963. From Celtic Lucilem "small", German lützel, OHG luc(c)il, luz(z)il (cognate to English "little") and Germanic Burg: "castle" or "fortress", thus Lucilemburg: "little castle" or "little fortress".
Euler diagram with an overview of the terminology Geographical feature Legal distinction The terminology of the British Isles comprises the words and phrases that are used to describe the (sometimes overlapping) geographical and political areas of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the smaller islands which surround them.
Ingelond that was that tyme called the Greet Brytayne …. [106] The chronicler John Stow in 1575 and the poet William Slatyer in 1621 each cited the spelling of "Brutayne" or "Brytayne" in Mandeville's Travels as evidence that Brutus of Troy was the origin of the name of the British Isles. [107] [108]