Word.ws English Dictionary

tea and medals

tea and medals noun: the rewards and relaxation that follow successful completion of an undertaking.

Noun

tea and medals pl (plural only)

  1. (humorous, plural, plural-only) The rewards and relaxation that follow successful completion of an undertaking.
    • “Come on then guys, home to England for tea and medals.”2002, Allen Murray, Skytrucker, page 262
    • What happens is we wait till he goes home, fall in behind, tap him on the shoulder, pop him in a bag, home for tea and medals. Alright?2010, Thomas Leveritt, The Exchange-Rate Between Love and Money, page 197

Origin of tea and medals

Apparently originated in the 1989 British TV comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth: "Back home in time for tea and medals".

Questions about tea and medals

What does tea and medals mean?
Tea and medals means the rewards and relaxation that follow successful completion of an undertaking.
What part of speech is tea and medals?
Tea and medals is a noun.

Words near tea and medals in the dictionary

  1. te-hee
  2. te-heed
  3. te-heeing
  4. te-hees
  5. tea
  6. tea and medals
  7. tea and toast syndrome
  8. tea and toaster
  9. tea and toasters
  10. tea bag
  11. tea bagged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tea and medals (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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