What’s in a word?

President Donald Trump has been accused of dishonesty, spreading falsehoods, misrepresenting facts, distorting news, passing on inaccuracies and being loose with the truth. But does he lie?

It’s a loaded word, and some Trump critics believe major news organizations are too timid to use it. The Washington Post, which has documented more than 4,000 false or misleading claims by the president, declared for the first time last week that a Trump misstatement was a “lie.”

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal provided “indisputable evidence that Trump and his allies have been deliberately dishonest” about hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote. The Post put Kessler’s assessment on its front page, and it was the newspaper’s most-read story online.

Not only was it the first time the Post fact checker said Trump had lied, it was the first time he used the word for any politician since Kessler began his fact-checking operation in 2011.

Many news organizations resist using the word because of the question of intent. Editors feel it’s important to establish whether someone is spreading false information knowingly, intending to deceive, and it’s hard to get inside a person’s head. In this Aug. 24 file photo, President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the Ohio Republican Party State Dinner in Columbus, Ohio.

While Kessler’s team has found 88 instances where Trump falsely claimed responsibility for the largest tax cut in U.S. history, the president may sincerely believe it, Kessler said.

At The Associated Press, “we feel it’s better to say what the facts are, say what the person said and let the audience make the decision whether or not it’s an intentional lie,” said John Daniszewski, the news co-operative’s standards editor.

Several readers told Kessler, in effect, that it’s about time. One critic, Paul Blest of the website

Splinter, wrote, “Can you imagine any other politician being held to this comically low standard?”

The Post’s milestone represents an abject failure, he wrote.

“It’s sort of a coverup for those in power when you don’t call it a lie,” said Jeff Cohen, a just-retired journalism professor and a producer of the documentary “All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F. Stone,” about the late journalist. He said journalists need to cut through the fog, and the word “lie” is an effective tool.

Yet one prominent editor wonders whether the whole discussion misses the point.

“I hate the fact that the debate and discussion over the word ‘lie’ has obscured a larger truth, if you will,” Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, told CNN earlier this month. “Does it matter if The New York Times or The Washington Post uses the word ‘lie’ three times, seven times, 10 times, 20 times? Or does it matter more that the fact-checker has found 4,229 misleading statements?”