Etymologically, the name Bhotey is innocuous enough. Literally, it designates someone who lives in Bhot. The term Bhot comes from the late Sanskrit Bhotah, which derives from Bod, the Tibetan name for Tibet. A Bhotey is therefore, quite simply, a Tibetan. But it is not that simple.
Regrettably, 'Bhotey' has gained pejorative overtones, since it evokes certain cultural traits, obnoxious to orthodox Hindu sensibilities. These traits, seen to be characteristic of the people in question, are that they wash infrequently, eat beef, and drink alcohol. To this extent 'Bhotey' is comparable to the Newar word Sain, which has become a derogatory expression for ethnic Tibetans.
'Bhotey' has come to acquire particularly charged overtones in Nepal. The unification of the kingdom left the conquerors with a chaotic array of peoples to organise into a nation. To make legal sense of the situation, they devised a series of national codes which made allowance for the perceived difference in status of the component groups. The most important of these codes was the Muluki Ain of 1854, which proposed a hierarchy of five caste groups, three "pure" and two "impure". The Bhoteys were placed in the lowest of the pure groups, designated Enslavable Alcohol Drinkers.
Unlike the Indian caste system, in which tribes lie altogether beyond the pale, the Nepali scheme accord a central place to its ethnic groups, who form the backbone of the middle and lower pure categories.