: an extremely toxic chemical CH3NCO used especially in the manufacture of pesticides—abbreviation MIC
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebIn 1984, India suffered the world's worst industrial disaster when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide factory in the city of Bhopal, killing more than 5,000 people and injuring more than half a million others. Aj Willingham, CNN, 7 Jan. 2022 Shortly after midnight on December 3, 1984, in the central Indian city of Bhopal, a tank in a pesticide factory leaked, releasing methyl isocyanate into the night sky. Vidya Krishnan, The Atlantic, 27 Apr. 2021 In a major industrial disaster in India in 1984, at least 2,850 people were killed and 20,000 injured when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a tank at Union Carbide India Ltd.’s Bhopal plant in central India.NBC News, 7 May 2020 In 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.BostonGlobe.com, 3 Dec. 2019 Last year, the same team uncovered a more complex molecule (methyl isocyanate) in a star-forming region more than 400 light years away from Earth. Luba Ostashevsky, Ars Technica, 26 Feb. 2018
Word History
First Known Use
1889, in the meaning defined above
Medical Definition
methyl isocyanate
noun
meth·yl iso·cy·a·nate
-ˌī-sō-ˈsī-ə-ˌnāt
: an extremely toxic chemical CH3NCO that is used especially in the manufacture of pesticides and was the cause of numerous deaths and injuries in a leak at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984—abbreviation MIC