From a Twitter meltdown by Roseanne Barr to a word dropped on Westworld, Hollywood had a major impact on the Dictionary.com trending word list this week. Racist, abhorrent, and repugnant A series of tweets by Roseanne Barr hit the news cycle this week, and they also helped boost a number of searches on Dictionary.com. Barr, star of the eponymous show Roseanne, tweeted a racist comment …
The royal wedding taught the world a few new words, but it wasn’t the only thing driving our trending searches this week. Fascinator, pomp and circumstance, and ginge The royal wedding didn’t just bring Prince Harry and Meghan Markle together in holy matrimony. It offered up a vocabulary lesson or two! Searches for the fancy hats traditionally worn to royal shindigs—fascinators–climbed 3,330% during the middle …
From LeBron James’ performance in the Eastern Conference finals to some reality stars on MTV, here’s a look at the vocabulary lessons we got from the news this week. BTFO No athlete wants to send people to the dictionary to find out that BTFO means “blown the f–k out,” least of all find out that searches for the acronym climbed 2455% after your loss. But, if …
From lawsuits on the gridiron to scandal in the Oval Office and a jump over the pond into the land of K-pop, trending words were all over the map this week! Toadyism and oleaginous Writer George Will can always be counted on to fill his columns with interesting words, and his latest Washington Post article titled “Trump Is No Longer the Worst Person in Government” …
What is net neutrality? You may have heard the term net neutrality in the news. Net neutrality is the idea that the relationship between you and content on the internet shouldn’t be altered by internet service providers—that ISPs should provide nondiscriminatory access to internet content, without manipulating the transfer of data, and treat all web traffic equally. The government has protected this idea until recently, when the FCC …
From rapper Kanye West to satirist Andy Borowitz to—who else—President Donald Trump, the trending words this week were driven by a star-studded cast of characters. So, what word really soared into the stratosphere? Unhinged Rumors that White House Chief of Staff had called President Donald Trump “an idiot” and said he was “becoming unhinged” helped boost searches for unhinged this week. But, it may have …
Between her success on the big screen, her chart-topping songs, and her success as a model, record producer and more, there’s not much Janelle Monae can’t do. Her latest accomplishment? Monae scored the top spot in the Dictionary.com Trending Words list with a 6087% jump in searches! Pansexual In an interview with Rolling Stone this week, Monae told the magazine that she initially identified as …
For the second time in as many months, former CIA Director John Brennan has thrown searches on Dictionary.com into a tailspin. Last month, Brennan’s retort to President Donald Trump drove people in droves to find out the meaning of the words turpitude, venality, and demagogue. So what word did Brennan use this time (in yet another response to the president)? Kakistocracy Meaning “a form of …
Sometimes, letting out a curse word feels pretty darn good, doesn’t it? How about letting out the word that means “feeling good about cursing?” It’s real, and it skyrocketed to the top of our trending words list this week! Lalochezia Searches for lalochezia, which means “emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language,” climbed a whopping 15,930%. The term has been making the rounds …
Social media has been abuzz this week with talk about—what else—Facebook, and all this talk has put at least one word in the hot seat on Dictionary.com’s trending list! Glib Glib took an abrupt 868% climb earlier in the week when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the term to clap back at Apple CEO Tim Cook, who had criticized the social-media company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. …