The word British is an adjective referring in various ways to the United Kingdom, or the island of Great Britain, and its people.
- Geography
- British Isles, an archipelago in north-western Europe
- British Islands, a legal term describing the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, collectively
- British Commonwealth, an organisation of member-states mostly from the former British Empire
- British Columbia, a province of Canada
- People
- British people, Britons, or Brits, subjects of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants
- Britons (historical), ancient Celtic inhabitants of the island of Great Britain south of the Firth of Forth.
- British nationality law, which governs the citizens of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the British Crown dependencies
- Language
- British English, the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom
- British language (Celtic), also known as Brythonic, the ancient Celtic language once spoken in Britain, ancestral to Welsh, Cornish and Breton
- History
- British Raj, rule of India in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century
- British Empire (historical), the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom when it was an imperial power
- Other
- British cuisine
- British Airways, flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word british:
“There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous—secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will—we know that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books ... we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“A girl? Hey, that’s better in a way. A boy needs more from a father.”
—Margaret Forster, British screenwriter, Peter Nichols, and Silvio Narizzano. Jos (Alan Bates)
“Gaze not on swans, in whose soft breast,
A full-hatched beauty seems to nest
Nor snow, which falling from the sky
Hovers in its virginity.”
—Henry Noel, British poet, and William Strode, British poet. Beauty Extolled (attributed to Noel and to Strode)