English, or more loosely, British AUSTRALIA, 1915

an English person, or more loosely, a person from Britain. Originally used of English immigrants to Australia, it is a shortening of the now obsolete 'Pomegranate', rhyming slang for 'immigrant'. The rhyming slang term and the shortened variants 'Pom' and 'Pommy' all appear in the lexical record at the same time. The occasional spelling 'pommygrant' shows the rhyming pronunciation. Although this word carries a definite negative connotation, it also can be used as a term of affectionate abuse (see POMMY BASTARD and WHINGEING POM). The suggestion that Pommy is actually a respelling of P. O.M.E., standing for the reputed term Prisoner Of Mother England, or P. O.H.M.I.E, standing for Prisoner Of Her Majesty In Exile, and other variations on this theme, are implausible on phonetic grounds and are in themselves anachronistic as acronyms were not a common feature of English in the early part of C20 AUSTRALIA, 1912