Merriam-Webster, arguably the most reliable dictionary and thesaurus of American English, revealed on Sunday that the most searched word on its website is currently “fascism,” with “misogyny,” “bigot,” “xenophobe” and “racism” on the rise too.
? Top lookups right now, in order:
fascism
bigot
xenophobe
racism
socialism
resurgence
xenophobia
misogynyhttps://t.co/Y1nrjCtOWq— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) November 13, 2016
As noted by Gizmodo, searches for “fascism” also spiked on Google Trends the day Donald Trump was named President-elect. Though currently unclear why, I’m guessing it has something to do with the flurry of stories circling the web attempting to answer the question, “Is Trump a fascist?”
It certainly looks as though these words — together with a slew of others highlighted by Merriam-Webster in the days following the election — represent the feelings of some Americans after news broke that Trump had won the race to become the 45th President of the United States.
Like Mashable, we’re not going to rule out the possibility of the surge in searches for these words being a coincidence. Although, we think it’s pretty safe to say that it isn’t.
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