Agent Orange
9
7.6
- noun
- /ˈeɪdʒənt ˈɔrɪndʒ/
- Literature
:
Agente Naranja
- Many veterans are still fighting for recognition of their illnesses caused by Agent Orange exposure.
- Agent Orange exposure
the United States used Agent Orange in Vietnam.
- the United States used Agent Orange in Vietnam.
- There's guys that have Agent Orange from Vietnam that still are fighting the government to get them to pay for their treatment and, and they're losing.
Examples
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Agent Orange defoliated huge swaths of the countryside, and napalm and white phosphorus bombs burned skin to a crisp.
Academic text (2009) -
the United States used Agent Orange in Vietnam.
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My great uncle Bob fought in Vietnam and is slowly dying from Agent Orange.
Blog text (7) -
While I was secretary, we used what's called Agent Orange in Vietnam, the chemical that strips leaves off of trees.
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The American people were becoming aware of the devastating effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used in Vietnam.
Blog text (14) -
Like other major military hubs in Southeast Asia, Bin Ha was a storage facility for Agent Orange.
Blog text (28) -
While many Vietnam veterans are marked by waist-down paralysis, as well as physical and psychological damage from exposure to Agent Orange, Hartford predicts that the signature injury of the current war will be traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Academic text (2006) -
The United States used Agent Orange extensively in Vietnam during the war.
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Survivors of the war have reported various health issues linked to Agent Orange.
Surface Forms
Morphology
agent + Orange
The word 'agent' signals a substance or actor, so a learner might infer this is some kind of chemical or agent, but the element 'Orange' functions as a proper-name label (not the color/fruit) and does not transparently indicate 'herbicide' or wartime defoliant effects. Because the compound is a specific proper noun whose harmful, historical, and technical sense cannot be fully derived from the constituents, it gives a partial clue but requires prior knowledge to understand correctly.
Etymology
Agent Orange may come from the orange stripe painted on the metal drums that held the chemical during the Vietnam War, because people called each chemical 'Agent' plus its color. That's why the name Agent Orange now refers to that specific plant-killing chemical and the harm it caused.