Vietnamese

[ vee-et-nah-meez, -mees, -nuh-, vyet-, vee-it- ]

adjective

1. of or relating to Vietnam or its inhabitants.

noun

, plural Vi·et·nam·ese.

1. Formerly Annamese,. the Austroasiatic language of Vietnam.
2. Sometimes Offensive. a native or inhabitant of Vietnam.

Sensitive Note

Some words that describe national or ethnic identities are acceptable as plural nouns, but are either rare or offensive in the singular. This is the case for Vietnamese. It’s sometimes acceptable as a plural noun (a candidate favored by Vietnamese ). However, it's sometimes offensive as a singular noun (the candidate who is a Vietnamese ). Such words are always perfectly appropriate as adjectives (strategies to get Vietnamese voters to the polls).

Other Words From

• an·ti-Vi·et·nam·ese adjective noun plural antiVietnamese
• pro-Vi·et·nam·ese adjective noun plural proVietnamese

Word History and Origins

Origin of Vietnamese¹

First recorded in 1945–50; Vietnam + -ese

Example Sentences

A few years ago, I was working as an editor at Phaidon, and my boss asked me to edit a manuscript from the popular Vietnamese-inspired restaurant.

From Washington Post

In practice, if we combine all of this and talk about VinFast, the Vietnamese car manufacturer that wanted to do things quite a bit differently than traditional car manufacturing.

From MIT Technology Review

Finally, Vietnamese Americans lean pretty consistently Republican.

From FiveThirtyEight

Both Anabelle Vo and Ngo have noticed a distinct generational divide in their own personal experiences, with younger Vietnamese Americans much more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than would their parents or grandparents.

From FiveThirtyEight

We highly appreciate that Vietnamese people basically followed all the rules, because it helped us a lot.

From MIT Technology Review

In Vietnam, Lewis was advisor to a Vietnamese infantry unit, whose nickname for him was “Captain of Many Kilos.”

From The Daily Beast

Wahlberg fled from the scene and approached a bystander, Hoa Trinh, also Vietnamese.

From The Daily Beast

On October 26 they were assigned to attack a power plant supplying the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

From The Daily Beast

He had learned Vietnamese while performing alternative military service in the Mekong Delta.

From The Daily Beast

“People knew my mom was Vietnamese [so] we could have been stopped,” she says.

From The Daily Beast

There's a native restaurant there, run by a former Vietnamese.

From Project Gutenberg

The Vietnamese food was really good, and the family who ran the restaurant greeted Kurt like an old friend.

From Project Gutenberg

For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam.

From Project Gutenberg

The North Vietnamese know that they cannot achieve their aggressive purposes by force.

From Project Gutenberg

Soviet-supported Vietnamese aggression in Indo-china has posed a major challenge to regional stability.

From Project Gutenberg