[Ads-l] kinetic

[Nancy Friedman]

Neal Whitman wrote about "kinetic warfare" in 2011 for the Visual
Thesaurus. He cited a 2002 article in Slate by Timothy Noah:
https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/kinetic-connections/

Nancy Friedman
Chief Wordworker
web: wordworking.com <http://www.wordworking.com>
substack https://fritinancy.substack.com/
Medium <https://medium.com/@wordworking>

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On Fri, May 8, 2026 at 8:06 AM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> > 'Involving offensive military action or active fire.' This specific
> > military sense is not in  MW, but I've been hearing it almost every day
> on
> > the news.  It strikes me as recent.
>
> Neither is this specific military sense in the OED.
>
> 2003 Marine Corps Times 22 Sep 10/2 [genealogybank]
>
> Still, the 1991 Persian Gulf War was more kinetic, with the majority of
> the 148 hostile-fire deaths taking place in the four days and four hours of
> that war's ground campaign.
>
>
> 2004 Armed Forces Journal Oct 52/3 [genealogybank]
>
> "We were just three weeks into the kinetic operations in Afghanistan," he
> said.
>
>
> 2004 Space Power Journal Winter 100/1
>
> The pub reinforces existing definitions found in AFDD 1, Air Force Basic
> Doctrine, 17 November 2003, which states that "counterspace involves those
> kinetic and nonkinetic operations conducted to attain and maintain a
> desired degree of space superiority by the destruction, degradation, or
> disruption of enemy space capability".
>
>
> https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA521373/page/100/mode/1up?q=%22non+kinetic+operations%22
>
>
>
>
> 2009 Army Times 19 Jan 8/2  [genealogybank]
>
> Soldiers in RC-East saw an 89 percent increase in kinetic activity in
> November and December 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, Capt.
> Christian Patterson, a spokesman for CJTF-101, wrote in an e-mail to Army
> Times.
>
>
> 2009 Infantry Aug 26/1
>
> Remember to use extreme discretion, caution, and care with both direct and
> indirect hostile intent fires (HIF); every unit has more firepower than it
> will ever need in any village, so use disciplined control measures to
> determine the best course of action if it ever goes kinetic in a populated
> area.
>
>
> https://archive.org/details/infantry9842fort/page/26/mode/1up?q=%22goes+kinetic%22
>
>
>
> 2010 R. A. Clarke Cyber War 197
>
> Once a war goes kinetic, most bets are off.
>
>
>
> https://archive.org/details/cyberwarnextthre0000clar/page/197/mode/1up?q=%22goes+kinetic%22
>
>
>
>
> 2016 B. Thor Foreign Agent 310
>
> Harvath was counting on him to both mind Baseyev and to be immediately
> ready to go hot if things went kinetic.
>
>
> https://archive.org/details/foreignagentthri0000thor/page/1/mode/1up?q=%22went+kinetic%22
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org