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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.
Humanists UK is the most prominent organisation espousing irreligion in the United Kingdom. [33] [citation needed] The organisation reported recent polling suggesting that the population with no religion may have reached 34 million. [34] In 2023, research from the World Value Survey found that only 49% of Britons said they believed in God.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the definition became even looser and is sometimes used to refer to a wide section of the (generally urban) underclass of the country (in England generally known as chavs), or merely a person of any social class who "lives on the cheap" such as a bohemian. It is also used as an adjective, e.g. "a pikey ...
Christianity is the dominant religion in the United Kingdom. Results of the 2021 Census for England and Wales showed that Christianity is the largest religion (though makes up less than half of the population), followed by the non-religious, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
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.
The right to freedom of religion in the United Kingdom is provided for in all three constituent legal systems, by devolved, national, European, and international law and treaty. Four constituent nations compose the United Kingdom, resulting in an inconsistent religious character , and there is no state church for the whole kingdom.
Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without belonging (Blackwell, 1994) Davies, Rupert E. et al. A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (3 vol. Wipf & Stock, 2017). online; Gilley, Sheridan, and W. J. Sheils. A History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present (1994) 608pp excerpt and text ...
The European Convention on Human Rights, which is legally binding on all European Union states (following the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the United Kingdom), makes restricting the rights of an individual to practice or change their religion illegal in article 9, and discrimination on the basis of religion illegal in article 14.