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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
phosgene
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Anhydrous caustic soda, hydrogen gas and phosgene, all well established product areas, are being developed to produce maximum returns.
▪ It was feared the burning Alloprene was producing phosgene gas, carbon tetrachloride and hydrochloric acid.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
phosgene

phosgene \phos"gene\ (f[o^]s"j[=e]n or f[o^]z"j[=e]n), n. (Chem.) A reactive chemical substance ( COCl2), also called carbonyl choride, used in synthesis of numerous substances. In the First Worlds War it was also used as a poisonous gas in combat.

phosgene

Carbonyl \Car"bon*yl\, n. [Carbon + -yl.] (Chem.) The radical (CO)'', occuring, always combined, in many compounds, as the aldehydes, the ketones, urea, carbonyl chloride, etc.

Note: Though denoted by a formula identical with that of carbon monoxide, it is chemically distinct, as carbon seems to be divalent in carbon monoxide, but tetravalent in carbonyl compounds.

Carbonyl chloride (Chem.), a colorless gas, COCl2, of offensive odor, and easily condensable to liquid. It is formed from chlorine and carbon monoxide, under the influence of light, and hence has been called phosgene, or phosgene gas; -- called also carbon oxychloride. It is used in chemical synthesis, and was also used as a poison gas in World War I.

Wiktionary
phosgene

n. (context inorganic compound English) (alternative form of carbonyl chloride English)

WordNet
phosgene

n. a colorless poisonous gas that smells like new-mown hay; used in chemical warfare

Wikipedia
Phosgene

Phosgene is the chemical compound with the formula COCl. This colorless gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I where it was responsible for about 85% of the 100,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons. It is also a valued industrial reagent and building block in synthesis of pharmaceuticals and other organic compounds. In low concentrations, its odor resembles freshly cut hay or grass. In addition to its industrial production, small amounts occur from the breakdown and the combustion of organochlorine compounds, such as those used in refrigeration systems. The chemical was named by combining the Greek words "phos" (meaning light) and "genesis" (birth); it does not mean it contains any phosphorus (cf. phosphine).

Usage examples of "phosgene".

He watched the bubbling cease from a glass container at the side of the Neutralizer, then turned on the phosgene.

They let us smell phosgene, bromobenzyl, cyanide, chloroacetophenone, and various other invisible poisons with equally ominous names.

And according to the reports, Soman is to Sarin as Sarin is to phosgene.

As I turn and look due north, I can see the greatest mountain in our hemisphere and the northern boundary of our world since the ridge disappears beneath phosgene clouds a few klicks north of there -- Chomo Lori, "Queen of Snow.

But we also produce enough barium to kill one hundred billion people, enough ammonia and hydrogen cyanide to kill six trillion, enough phosgene to kill twenty trillion, and enough chlorine to kill four hundred trillion.

For a minute I am looking straight down at the moonlit phosgene clouds -- green as mustard gas in the lying moonlight -- then we are both racketing around a series of spirals, DNA-HELIX switchbacks, our sleds teetering on the edge of each bank so that twice my ice-axe blade bites into nothing but freezing air, but both times we drop back down and emerge -- not exiting the turns so much as being spit out of them, two rifle bullets fired just above the ice -- and then we bank high again, come out accelerating onto a straight, and shoot across eight kilometers of sheer ice wall on the .

For a minute I am looking straight down at the moonlit phosgene clouds -- green as mustard gas in the lying moonlight -- then we are both racketing around a series of spirals, DNA-HELIX switchbacks, our sleds teetering on the edge of each bank so that twice my ice-axe blade bites into nothing but freezing air, but both times we drop back down and emerge -- not exiting the turns so much as being spit out of them, two rifle bullets fired just above the ice -- and then we bank high again, come out accelerating onto a straight, and shoot across eight kilometers of sheer ice wall on the Abruzzi Spur, the right banked wall of the slideway now serving as the floor of our passage, my ice axe spinning chips into vertical space as our speed increases, then increases more, then becomes something more than speed as the cold, thin air slices through my mask and thermal garments and gloves and heated boots to freeze flesh and to tear at muscle.