Vietnam flashback

Vietnam flashback noun: a flashback; a vivid mental image of a past trauma.

Noun

Vietnam flashback (plural Vietnam flashbacks)

(slang) A flashback; a vivid mental image of a past trauma.
- I lived in the kind of place where your neighbors are always having Vietnam flashbacks. And they’d never even been to Vietnam.2007, Rodney Carrington, Coming Clean, Center Street, page 15
- Walking through the halls, Mom is always, like, having a Vietnam flashback. We’ll pass some random piece of art hanging on the wall and she’ll grab onto a chair and say, Oh, God, that Milton Avery poster. Or, gulping a big breath, That ficus tree had origami cranes hanging on it that awful...2012, Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Thorndike Press, page 65

Walking through the halls, Mom is always, like, having a Vietnam flashback.2012, Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Thorndike Press, page 65:
He’s one Vietnam flashback from a full house of horrors.2024 June 20, James Harvey, “The Exorcism review: Russell Crowe gets back in the cassock”, in Film Stories, archived from the original on...

plural	Vietnam flashbacks

From Vietnam + flashback. Referencing veteran trauma from the Vietnam War

What does Vietnam flashback mean?: Vietnam flashback means a flashback; a vivid mental image of a past trauma.
How do you use Vietnam flashback in a sentence?: Walking through the halls, Mom is always, like, having a Vietnam flashback.
What part of speech is Vietnam flashback?: Vietnam flashback is a noun.
What is the plural of Vietnam flashback?: The plural of Vietnam flashback is Vietnam flashbacks.

Adapted from Wiktionary: Vietnam flashback (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “Vietnam flashback.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vietnam_flashback. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.