--- title: Merriam-Webster: 15 Times the Dictionary Trolled Politics description: At a time when words matter, one dictionary has emerged to school us all: Merriam Webster canonical: https://time.com/4774687/merriam-webster-dictionary-politics-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-10T22:09:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-14T21:55:23.000Z og:title: 18 Times Merriam-Webster Was a Political Troll og:description: From Donald Trump's "bigly" to Hillary Clinton's "deplorable" og:url: https://time.com/4774687/merriam-webster-dictionary-politics-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/ 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: 18 Times Merriam-Webster Was a Political Troll twitter:description: From Donald Trump's "bigly" to Hillary Clinton's "deplorable" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 18 Times Merriam-Webster Was a Political Troll by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Updated: Dec 14, 2023 9:55 PM UTCPublished: May 10, 2017 10:09 PM UTC by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Updated: Dec 14, 2023 9:55 PM UTCPublished: May 10, 2017 10:09 PM UTC At a time when words matter, one dictionary has emerged to [school](http://time.com/4726025/dictionary-ivanka-trump-complicity-merriam-webster/) us all: Merriam-Webster. With eyes glued to press briefings and testimonies, people are turning to dictionaries to find out what politicians are really saying and the team behind [Merriam-Webster’s](http://time.com/4770763/merriam-webster-corrects-donald-trump-tweet/) Twitter account have seized every opportunity to sink its teeth into the national dialogue with tweets that spread by the thousands. Where a statement can puzzle, a dictionary can clarify. Like [Dictionary.com](https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/842469984957689856), the dictionary company makes these calls to engage with social media followers – and help out. From President Donald Trump’s “bigly” to Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable,” here are 13 times Merriam-Webster has responded to political language on Twitter: The online dictionary corrected the spelling of then-presidential contender Donald Trump’s tweets targeting Florida Senator [Marco Rubio](http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/politics/donald-trump-spelling-debate-tweet/), which Trump later corrected. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/703236443498553344) Following Hillary Clinton’s [fundraiser speech](http://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/) in which she said “half of Donald Trump’s supporters belong in a basket of deplorables” characterized by discriminatory views, Merriam-Webster was there to clarify the adjective on many people’s lips. > [](https://twitter.com/merriamwebster/status/775709216111783936) Following speculation about whether Trump kept saying “big league” or “bigly,” Merriam-Webster declared them both “real words.” (Trump clarified that it’s officially “big league” during an interview with [Raymond Arroyo of the Catholic Eternal Word Television](http://Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PCsZ%5Fx9Z6s).) > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/788915239618224130) The dictionary made its views on the 2016 Election clear when it changed its Twitter banner to a certain foreboding German term. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/795740554063740928) In December, then-President-elect Trump appeared to delete and correct a tweet containing an unintentionally comical typo, but not before Merriam-Webster had fun with spell check duty. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/810117698558562304) > [](https://twitter.com/jk%5Frowling/status/810104932330303488) After current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said that Trump’s inauguration was “historical,” Merriam-Webster was happy to call out the commonly misued word. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/822822341944180737) President Trump’s Counselor Kellyanne Conway’s phrasing really stirred up the lexicon pot with her explanation of Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s remarks on Inauguration crowd size, and predictably, Merriam-Webster got in on the conversation. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/823221915171061760) > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/824026625373306884) After Spicer insisted intelligence community members thanked Trump with a [standing ovation](http://time.com/4669781/saturday-night-live-sean-spicer-melissa-mccarthy-supercut/) at an early press briefing, Merriam-Webster got sassy with the best of them on Twitter. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/823693884962340866) They were on a roll. After the White House’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement omitted the mention of the 6 million Jews killed, Merriam-Webster [clapped back](http://time.com/4652863/white-house-statement-holocaust-remembrance-day/). > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/826193457282707457) After Press Secretary Sean Spicer declined to define the word “betrayal” at the request of _New York Times_ reporter Glenn Thrush at a briefing, Merriam-Webster gleefully did. > [](https://twitter.com/merriamwebster/status/826526915108405248) It supplied the internet with feminism’s meaning after Conway [criticized the word feminist’s association](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/23/kellyanne-conway-feminism-associated-with-being-anti-male-and-pro-abortion/?utm%5Fterm=.e3445ced6a8b) with being “anti-male” and “pro-abortion” at the Conservative Political Action Conference. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/834806087371071491) (It’s worth knowing that [dictionaries](https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/842469984957689856) are constantly undergoing revisions to stay fresh, and there are humans behind them — so spin is potentially unavoidable. ) When Trump fired off a tweet [with a typo](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/322323-merriam-webster-needles-trump-on-twitter-spelling-fumbles) arguing for an investigation of Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the dictionary couldn’t resist this thoughtful reminder. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/837802396956913668) > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/837770149767827456) Merriam-Webster dictionary defined the buzzy word “compilict” after Ivanka Trump said she didn’t know what it meant in an interview with CBS News’ Gayle King. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/849378025191997440) The dictionary had more fun when Trump mixed up homonyms in a tweet about ousted Attorney General Sally Yates, who gave a testimony before the Senate about warning the White House that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was “compromised.” > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/861576558494056448) > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861592420043157504) After Trump [_said_](http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript) he “came up” with the expression “priming the pump” – to communicate stimulus – Merriam-Webster sprang to action with the genesis of the expression, which started 13 years before he was born, according to the company. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/862640442474672129) During a [commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy](http://time.com/4781964/donald-trump-coast-guard-commencement-watch-online/), POTUS said, “no politician in history — and I say this with great surety —has been treated worse, or more unfairly.” Merriam Webster quickly tweeted a link to the definition, citing a spike in lookups. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/864937819361476608) And it appeared the President didn’t take the note on counsel, so when he tweeted another typo soon after – “councel” – Merriam Webster being Merriam Webster would not let him live this one down. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/865260640092520448) After President Trump said in a statement released by the White House, that an investigation would find “there was no [collusion](http://time.com/4783889/trump-russia-contacts-campaign/) between my campaign and any foreign entity,” Merriam Webster went all troll on him again. > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/865329986806435841) > [](https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/865330273474539520) The lingo experts were also quick to report that look ups for the word “suborn” meaning, “to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing” were up more than 28,000% after former Director of the CIA John Brennan’s testimony about contacts between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. > 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