Merriam-Webster is proving an unlikely star of the Presidential debates, tweeting a string of words Americans are looking up and shedding new light on what is really happening in US homes.
As Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took to the stage for their second debate, the first word that began to spike was "contrite" - regret for bad behaviour - following the leaking of a shocking tape that showed Trump essentially admitting to sexually assaulting a colleague by saying he "moved on her like a b***h" and tried to "grab her p***y".
That was quickly followed by "deplorable", "benevolent" and "misogyny". Shortly afterwards "locker room" began to spike, in reference to the dismissal of the comments as "locker room talk".
As the two candidates moved forward in what proved to be an extraordinarily bitter exchange, people also looked up the word "deflection" and "Affordable Care Act" aimed at providing medical coverage to all Americans and more commonly known as "Obamacare".
When talk moved to Syria and the city of Aleppo which is suffering a humanitarian crisis after a ceasefire between US and Russian backed forces collapsed, Americans began to look up the name of the city but mistakenly called it "a lepo" rather than "Aleppo".
