--- title: Presidential Debate: These Are the Most-Searched Words description: From "acid-washed" to "Aleppo," viewers of Sunday night's presidential debate had a lot of questions about the words they heard canonical: https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-10T15:41:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:30.418Z article:section: Politics og:title: These Are the Most-Searched Words From the Presidential Debate og:description: Or should we say, they were searched "bigly" og:url: https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1f73c22f3f36fbf/6988a9542dce0101719eaf60/gettyimages-613703450.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: US-VOTE-DEBATE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are the Most-Searched Words From the Presidential Debate twitter:description: Or should we say, they were searched "bigly" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1f73c22f3f36fbf/6988a9542dce0101719eaf60/gettyimages-613703450.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Are the Most-Searched Words From the Presidential Debate > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Oct 10, 2016 3:41 PM UTC  US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listen during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 9, 2016\. ROBYN BECK—AFP/Getty Images US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listen during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 9, 2016\. ROBYN BECK—AFP/Getty Images ROBYN BECK—AFP/Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Oct 10, 2016 3:41 PM UTC From “acid-washed” to “Aleppo,” viewers of Sunday night’s presidential debate had a lot of questions about the words they heard from the candidates and moderators. According to [Dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/), which tracked searches during the second presidential debate, “deplorable,” “acid-washed” and “debunked” were among the top-searched words on Sunday evening—and they came at some of the key moments of the debate. At one point, Donald Trump suggested Hillary Clinton would have a difficult time being a president for all Americans, given that she’d written off some Trump supporters as fitting in a “[basket of deplorables](http://time.com/4486437/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-basket-of-deplorables/).” Other words that made the top-searched list included “decisiveness,” “amnesty” and “Aleppo,” showing that [Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson](http://time.com/4483736/presidential-candidate-gary-johnson-should-know-about-aleppo/) is not the only person confused by mentions of the Syrian city. Viewers at home were also baffled by a couple of Trump’s utterances, including “bigly” and “unproud.” For what it’s worth, Trump’s camp has insisted he’s been saying “big league” and not “bigly” as many apparently assumed, but that didn’t stop viewers from asking if the latter is a dictionary-defined term (it is, though it’s not commonly used). “Unproud,” however, is a tougher call. But it’s safe to say that Trump isn’t, well, _unproud_ of using it. Here is the full list of most-searched terms, courtesy of Dictionary.com: * Aleppo * acid-washed * bigly * amnesty * block grant * debunk/debunked * demagogic * deplorable * decisiveness * denigrate * nuclear * osmosis * prisoner of war/POW * rejigger, jigger, jiggering * secretively * unproud * veto * xenophobia, xenophobic, and xenophobe ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/"},"headline":"These Are the Most-Searched Words From the Presidential Debate","datePublished":"2016-10-10T15:41:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:30.418Z","description":"Or should we say, they were searched \"bigly\"","url":"https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1f73c22f3f36fbf/6988a9542dce0101719eaf60/gettyimages-613703450.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1f73c22f3f36fbf/6988a9542dce0101719eaf60/gettyimages-613703450.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-VOTE-DEBATE","caption":"US-VOTE-DEBATE","creditText":"ROBYN BECK—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4524919/presidential-debate-words-donald-trump/","name":"These Are the Most-Searched Words From the Presidential Debate"}}]}] ```