Meanings
- historicalpluralplural onlyThose people living in Ireland or in Wales who are of English descent (chiefly with definite article).First known use 15th c.
a general massacre of the Englishry
1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC
plural Englishries
- uncountableEnglishness.First known use 19th c.
Blue-eyed women he believed there were in Kashmir, but here was the mythical Englishry of fair hair as well.
1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 502 more examples
It is these people who, taking with them so much furniture and Englishry of all kinds have set up everywhere communities with names like ‘Little England’, ‘Newest England’, ‘England Again’ which are more English than England ever was.
1969, Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City, Flamingo 1993 edition, page 635Yes, [Philip] Larkin was an icon of Englishry, and a fine specimen of its complexes and neuroses: not only arrogant and xenophobic hut also inward-looking, frightened, and depressive.
1993 September 1, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “An Icon of Englishry”, in The Atlantic
Origin
From English + -ry, in legal senses after Anglo-Norman englescherie, englecherie. Compare Late Latin Anglescheria, Englescheria (“the state of being English”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Englishry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Englishry
“Englishry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Englishry. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Englishry,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Englishry.
Source: Englishry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.