Braggadocious? Debate sends viewers to the dictionary

As Donald Trump and Hil- lary Clinton clashed at their first debate Monday over which one has the “stamina” and “temperament” to be president, more than a few viewers turned to the internet to understand exactly what those words meant.

They turned to the website of Merriam-Webster, a dictionary founded in 1828 that now has a thoroughly modern social media pres- ence. The dictionary is wry and sometimes outright snarky on Twitter, such as the time it told a Slate edi- tor this month that “no one cares how you feel” (and got more than 18,000 retweets in the process.)

On Monday evening, the company tweeted through- out the debate as viewers in large numbers looked up keywords and phrases used by Trump and Clinton.

Merriam-Webster has been tracking election-re- lated searches throughout the campaign and noting the top performers, includ- ing the word “deplorable” after Clinton used the word in reference to some Trump supporters and for “Skittle” after Donald Trump Jr. com- pared Syrian refugees to Skit- tles “that would kill you.”

So what were the highest performers Monday night?

The dictionary said searches for “temperament” spiked 78 times above the normal hourly average during the debate, after Trump loudly declared: “I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament.”

■ Temperament: noun. “The usual attitude, mood, or behavior of a person or animal.”

The dictionary also said that searches for “stamina” jumped after the candidates disagreed over which one of them was more physically up to the job.

■ Stamina: noun. “Great physical or mental strength that allows you to continue doing something for a long time.”

But “braggadocio” was the most-searched word on the website for part of the evening, the dictionary said, after Trump said he did not mean to sound “braggadocious” when discussing his wealth and business dealings.

■ Braggadocio: noun. “The annoying or exaggerated talk of someone who is trying to sound very proud or brave.”

Trump also seemed to resurrect a word during the debate that had previously inspired puzzlement and mirth because it seemed to be made up: bigly, meaning in a large way.

“I’m going to cut taxes bigly, and you’re going to raise taxes bigly,” he seemed to say, though the Federal News Service transcript rendered it as “big league.”

There was no immediate information on how “bigly” ranked in search. But for the record, it’s a legitimate adverb, according to the dictionary.