Tamil Tigers
- proper noun
- NSFW
:
Tigres tamiles
- The Tamil Tigers were involved in several high-profile assassinations in their quest for autonomy.
Examples
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The Tamil Tigers fought for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka during the civil war.
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Known for their guerilla tactics, the Tamil Tigers launched numerous attacks on military targets.
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Tamil Tigers destroyed eight military planes, damaged ten others, and blew up six commercial jets.
Academic text (2007) -
And the Tamil Tigers have lost the sympathy of the world by their slaughter of innocent Sinhalese.
Academic text (2008) -
Sinhalese blame LTTE separatists (also known as "Tamil Tigers") for ambushing and killing their soldiers.
Academic text (2007) -
From the Zealots in the first century AD to the Red Brigades, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Tamil Tigers, and others in more recent times, terrorism has been a tactic used by the weak in an effort to produce political change.
Academic text (2007)
Synonyms
2
9.9
An armed group in Sri Lanka that used violence to seek a separate Tamil state
An armed group in Sri Lanka that fought for a separate Tamil state and used suicide attacks
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a proper name for a specific militant organization, and the meaning 'an armed separatist group' is not derivable from the constituents 'Tamil' (an ethnic group) and 'tigers' (an animal or nickname). A B1 learner who knows the words could easily interpret it as a team name, nickname, or symbolic label rather than inferring the historical/political sense, so the phrase is unpredictable and culturally specific.
Etymology
Tamil Tigers comes from the group's full name, the 'Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam', where Tamil names the people they claimed to represent. They used the image of a tiger to show strength and fear, so the name came to mean the armed group that fought for a separate Tamil homeland.