Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A historical region of southeast Asia on the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea, now forming most of northern Vietnam. It was part of French Indochina from 1887 to 1946.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A surname.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a medieval diminutive form of the given name Thomas.

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Examples

  • The water battle became known as the Tonkin Gulf Incident.

    Daytona Beach News-Journal Online 2009

  • Of greater significance, on 7 August the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which enabled Johnson to employ military force as he saw fit against the Vietnamese Communists.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • Of greater significance, on 7 August the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which enabled Johnson to employ military force as he saw fit against the Vietnamese Communists.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • Of greater significance, on 7 August the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which enabled Johnson to employ military force as he saw fit against the Vietnamese Communists.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • Most of the fighting took place in Northern Vietnam (the area the French referred to as Tonkin) although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring Indochinese countries of Laos and Cambodia.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • '' 'Tonkin' '' is the northernmost of the three principal regions, from French Indochina, which made up what was to become [[Vietnam]].

    Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • Or recall the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, used by President Lyndon Johnson as a justification for widening the Vietnam War.

    Pepe Escobar: The Myth of “Isolated” Iran Pepe Escobar 2012

  • Or recall the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, used by President Lyndon Johnson as a justification for widening the Vietnam War.

    Pepe Escobar: The Myth of “Isolated” Iran Pepe Escobar 2012

  • I went to my first antiwar demonstration only months after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was rammed through the Congress.

    Bill Zimmerman: The Movement Next Time Bill Zimmerman 2011

  • Or recall the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, used by President Lyndon Johnson as a justification for widening the Vietnam War.

    Pepe Escobar: The Myth of “Isolated” Iran Pepe Escobar 2012

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