Limey

Limey is a slang term for British sailors, and later British people generally, that arose from the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy practice of issuing citrus juice to prevent scurvy. The Merchant Shipping Act 1867 made daily lime or lemon juice mandatory on British ships after a set number of days at sea, building on James Lind’s 1747 trial and the Navy’s earlier issue. American and Australian sailors shortened ’lime-juicer’ to ’limey’; the usage is recorded from the 1880s.