Sticks and stone series: Racist slurs and nicknames for the British

Bife literally meaning ‘steak’, but sounding like “beef.” A slang term in Portugal. Feminine form, bifa, mainly used to refer to English female tourists.

Brit shortened form of “Briton”.

Britisher An archaic form of “Briton”, similar to “Brit”, always much more used in North America than Britain itself, but even there, it is outdated. An equivalent of the word “Engländer“, which is the German noun for “Englishman”. The term was also used extensively in the British Raj and is still used extensively in the Indian Subcontinent.

Chinless Wonder Reference to inbreeding and a weak gene pool

Cocks Short for ‘cockneys’

Crumpet-Stuffer They eat crumpets with their tea.


Feb Filthy (or F*cking) English Bastard.

Fog Horn A loud/annoying British person.

Fog-Breather Englands weather is often extremely foggy

Inselaffe (“island ape”) A German term

Jeeves A supposedly common name of British butlers.

Lobsterback British Redcoats in Revolutionary War.

Limey North American slang for Britons, especially those from England.

The term is thought to have originated in the 1850s as “lime-juicer”,and was later shortened to “limey”.It was originally used as a derogatory word for sailors in the Royal Navy, because of the Royal Navy’s practice since the beginning of the 19th century of adding lemon juice or lime juice to the sailors’ daily ration of watered-down rum (known as grog), in order to prevent scurvy.

Eventually the term lost its naval connection and was used about British people in general. In the 1880s, it was used to refer to British immigrants in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Although the term may have been used earlier in the U.S. Navy as a slang word for a British sailor or a British warship, such usage is not documented until 1918. By 1925, its usage in American English had been extended to mean any Briton, and the expression was so commonly known that it was used in American newspaper headlines.

Pom, Pommy

The terms Pommy, Pommie and Pom, in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand usually denotes an English person […] The Oxford Dictionary defines their use as “often derogatory”but after complaints to the Australian Advertising Standards Board regarding five advertisements poking fun at “Poms”, the board ruled in 2006 that these words are inoffensive, in part because they are “largely used in playful or affectionate terms”.The New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority made a similar ruling in 2010.

[…] There are several folk etymologies for “Pommy” or “Pom”. The best-documented of these is that “Pommy” originated as a contraction of “pomegranate”.According to this explanation, “pomegranate” was Australian rhyming slang for “immigrant” […] Usage of “pomegranate” for English people may have been strengthened by a belief in Australia that sunburn occurred more frequently amongst English immigrants, turning those with fair skin the colour of pomegranates.

Pohm “Prisoner Of Her Majesty”. Used mainly in Australia as a derogatory term for British People. Comes from the fact that Australia was a prisoner colony for British Prisoners.

Pome PrisonersProperty Of Mother England’ Used in Australia, New Zealand

Rosbif French term which refers to the English tradition of cooking roast beef, and the song “The Roast Beef of Old England”.

Red Coat Used during the Revolutionary War, because of the Red coats the British army wore.

Rooineck South African version of redneck.

Rooinek This derogatory name was used by the Boers to describe the British primarily after the Anglo-Boer war which lasted from 1899-1902.

Tea-wop Tea-drinking immigrants.

Teabag British are said to drink a good deal of tea.


A slur used colloquially in Ireland, referring to the Black and Tan forces supplied by David Lloyd George to Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in order to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in dealing with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The force was composed mainly of World War I British Army veterans, who wore Khaki British Army uniforms with dark RIC overcoats and were remembered for their excessive force and violence. Thus, the term’s use is intended to bring about feelings of resentment and instil republican sentiments. By extension, Great Britain is sometimes referred to as “Tanland”.

Tommy The German, the French and the British Commonwealth armies used the name “Tommy” for British soldiers. “Tommy” is derived from the name “Tommy Atkins” which had been used as a generic name for a soldier for many years.

Wanker Implies that the addresser is accusing the addressee of self-gratification.

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