home county

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “date”)

Noun

home county (plural home counties)

  1. (often in the plural) Any of the counties that surround London in the south-east of England.
    Hyponyms: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex
    • 1940 July, R. A. H. Weight, “Hastings—An Interesting Traffic Centre”, in Railway Magazine, page 391:
      Owing to the comparative nearness to London and populous home county centres, road competition is keen for goods as well as summer passenger business.
    • 2017 October 12, Ian Warren, “How the Conservatives lost their home counties heartland”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Think home counties, and the sorts of things that come to mind are blue-rinse, golf courses and village halls. This is a stereotype we need to reconsider based on the latest demographic shifts we are seeing in and around London.
    • 2025 December 20, Laura Battle, quoting Maggie Aderin-Pocock, “Lunch with the FT: Maggie Aderin-Pocock”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 3:
      “I think my accent must have morphed to fit in, because I speak with I think they call it home county vowels,” she laughs.

Further reading

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