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'Fascist' seizes supremo search slot on Trump triumph

Americans break open panel to access dictionaries

Nigel Farage thinks Donald Trump's success in the US presidential election echoes Brexit.

There is certainly one similarity: the outwitting of a commentariat that thought such a result – the Teflon billionaire's defeat of career politician Hillary Clinton – as unlikely.

But just as Britons woke up to the notion of life outside the European Union on 24 June, so it seems reality is dawning on our American cousins.

By noon on the Friday following the UK referendum, and a good six months after the campaign started, Brits were starting to ask the truly difficult questions.

And they turned to Google for answers, with a spike in searches to questions including "What does it mean to leave the EU?" and "What is the EU?"

Now dictionary Merriam-Webster has revealed a spike in online search terms directly connected to the US election.

Fascism, bigot, xenophobe, racism, socialism, resurgence, xenophobia and misogyny are the currently the most popular search terms on Merriam-Webster's site, it tweeted.

Searches for "fascist" are 400 per cent higher than 12 months ago with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's fave word now number four in Merriam-Webster's list of all-time look-ups, the online dictionary said.

Socialism, pragmatic and bigot are numbers one, two and three for the dictionary, which was founded in 1828.

Misogyny was among the top searches the morning after the US election on 9 November, according to MW, spiking higher the next day as the word appeared repeatedly in news, comments, editorials, and on social media. ®

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