Tonkin
Americannoun
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a former state in northern French Indochina, now part of Vietnam.
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Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea, west of Hainan. 300 miles (485 km) long.
noun
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a former state of N French Indochina (1883–1946), on the Gulf of Tonkin: forms the largest part of N Vietnam
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an arm of the South China Sea, bordered by N Vietnam, the Leizhou Peninsula of SW China, and Hainan Island. Length: about 500 km (300 miles)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Franklin D. Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor, Lyndon B. Johnson after the Gulf of Tonkin and George W. Bush after 9/11 all sought congressional approval for war or wider military action.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
To do so, they used two isolated incidents of North Vietnamese patrol boats attacking a naval destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2025
"We were on tenterhooks in the sale room, it just kept going and going, it was wonderful, truly wonderful," said Jennifer Tonkin of auctioneers Bonhams.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2025
The series compellingly addresses the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the baseless claims of William Westmoreland about impending victory, and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers.
From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2025
President Lyndon Johnson ordered the Maddox to continue patrolling in the Tonkin Gulf.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
