Trending: ‘perfidy’
Lookups spiked 25,200% on January 31, 2020
Perfidy snuck its way to the top of the lookup chart on January 31, 2020, after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer used it to describe Senate Republicans' vote to block witnesses in the Trump impeachment trial:
Schumer: "No witnesses, no documents in an impeachment trial is a perfidy. It is a grand tragedy. One of the worst tragedies that the Senate has overcome. America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 31, 2020
Perfidy is a noun meaning "the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal : treachery" or "an act or an instance of disloyalty." The word derives from the Latin perfidus, meaning "faithless," which is itself made of per- ("detrimental to") and fides ("faith").
Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.
Test Your Vocabulary
January 2020 Words of the Day Quiz
-

- Which is a synonym of bonhomie?

Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
TAKE THE QUIZ
Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.
TAKE THE QUIZ-
January 2020 Words of the Day Quiz
Word of the Day quiz returns (again!)
Take the quiz -
Intact Latin Quiz
What did each of these words mean to ancient Romans?
Take the quiz -
Spell It
Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
Take the quiz -
Syn City
Build a city of skyscrapers—one synonym at a time.
Play the game













