What is a Veteran Word™?

Question

If a word conforms to a certain rule, I call it a Veteran Word™.

Use the following examples below to find the rule:

Here is a CSV version:

Veteran Words^TM, Not Veteran Words^TM

AGENT, ASSISTANT*
ALPHABET, FUNDAMENTALS
BUDGET, ALLOCATION*
JEANS, TROUSERS
LASER, BEAM
PAUSE, HALT*
RADIO, RECEIVER
SAUCE, FLAVOURING
TAXI, CARRIAGE
VETERAN**, WISE

*Half a Veteran Word^TM
**Only just a Veteran Word^TM

@randal'thor, typo it should be receiver but it doesn't make a difference — Beastly Gerbil, Sep 11 '16 at 14:27
"CSV" means "comma-separated value", and is a recognized, standard format for information. It's not just a plaintext version of a table. Please don't call things CSV unless they're really CSV. — , Oct 02 '16 at 17:13

score 20 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 12 '16 at 20:11

20

As suggested by the language tag, I think a Veteran Word™ may be

something to do with foreign languages: specifically, a word which is the same in English, French, and German.

All the words in the left-hand column, according to

my knowledge of French, supported by Google Translate for the rarer words and the German,

satisfy this criterion. VETERAN is "only just" a Veteran Word™ because

the French for "veteran" is "vétéran", which is only the same word if we ignore diacritics.

The words in the right-hand column which are "half a Veteran Word™" are so because

the English word is the same in one of French and German but not both: the German for "halt" is "Halt" but the French is "halte"; the French for "assistant" is "assistant" but the German is "Assistent"; the French for "allocation" is "allocation" but the German is "Zuweisung".

They're called Veteran Words™ because

They are 'war veterans' as the 3 countries all fought in WWI and WWII

edited Oct 12 '16 at 20:11

Beastly Gerbil

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answered Sep 11 '16 at 15:20

Rand al'Thor

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Close! So close! But think about (war) veteran. Its not just french.... – Beastly Gerbil Sep 11 '16 at 15:21
http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/32244832#32244832 - fix it! – Mithical Sep 11 '16 at 15:22
Yay you got it! – Beastly Gerbil Sep 11 '16 at 15:25
@Mithrandir I realised that before seeing it in chat! :-) – Rand al'Thor Sep 11 '16 at 15:25
@randal'thor, britain germany and france where the main countries. And russia wouldn't work :P – Beastly Gerbil Sep 11 '16 at 15:30
@BeastlyGerbil If we include a translation table, it might work. – EKons Sep 11 '16 at 15:36

What is a Veteran Word™?

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