--- title: Brennan CIA on Trump: Merriam Webster Defines Suborn description: Searches for the definition of the word 'suborn' spiked on Tuesday canonical: https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-23T18:39:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:54.117Z og:title: Merriam Webster Defines 'Suborn' After CIA Testimony on Russia og:description: Searches were up more than 28,000% after the Russia probe testimony og:url: https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Merriam Webster Defines 'Suborn' After CIA Testimony on Russia twitter:description: Searches were up more than 28,000% after the Russia probe testimony twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Merriam Webster Defines 'Suborn' After Former CIA Chief Testifies About Russia Probe by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 23, 2017 6:39 PM UTC by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 23, 2017 6:39 PM UTC Searches for the definition of the word ‘suborn’ spiked on Tuesday after former CIA director John Brennan used it while [testifying](http://time.com/4790605/cia-brennan-trump-campaign-russia-congress/?xid=homepage) before the House Intelligence Committee, according to [Merriam-Webster](http://time.com/4775731/merriam-webster-donald-trump-priming-the-pump/). The dictionary company — known for its recent push in [responding to political language](http://time.com/4774687/merriam-webster-dictionary-politics-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/) on Twitter — said look ups for the word were up more than 28,000% after Brennan’s testimony about contacts between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on Tuesday morning. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/867049037199007750) While testifying, Brennan said he knew of intelligence that revealed contacts between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. “I was concerned about \[that intelligence\] because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,” Brennan said. According to Merriam-Webster, to [suborn](https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/brennan-concerns-of-russian-efforts-to-suborn-20170523?src=twflag) is “to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing.” Brennan CIA on Trump: Merriam Webster Defines Suborn ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/"},"headline":"Merriam Webster Defines 'Suborn' After Former CIA Chief Testifies About Russia Probe","datePublished":"2017-05-23T18:39:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:54.117Z","description":"Searches were up more than 28,000%","url":"https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Social Media","politics","viral","language"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"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":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4791240/john-brennan-cia-suborn-merriam-webster/","name":"Merriam Webster Defines 'Suborn' After Former CIA Chief Testifies About Russia Probe"}}]}] ```