The Words of the Week - June 13
Dictionary lookups from Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and music
‘Insurrection’
Lookups for insurrection began climbing on Monday amid speculation that President Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 in response to people in Los Angeles protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Critics have raised concerns that Trump also might try to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to activate troops as part of his campaign to deport large numbers of immigrants without proper documents. … Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University Law School, said the president “is embracing a very broad view of executive power.” “If the president does use the Insurrection Act,” Levinson said, “we’re going to see big legal battles in the next hours, days and weeks about whether or not those broad grants of authority can be used given these circumstances.”
—Seema Mehta and Ian James, The Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2025
At the roundtable, Trump stopped short of calling the LA protests an insurrection, but said “it could have led to one.” (This is at odds with his labelling of protestors as “insurrectionists” on social media less than an hour ago, he did yesterday too.)
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Insurrection has a legal definition of “the act or an instance of revolting especially violently against civil or political authority or against an established government.” The word may also be applied to the crime of inciting or engaging in such revolt. Insurrection came to English from the Latin word insurgere, meaning “to rise against.”
‘ICE’
Lookups for ICE were also high for reasons related to insurrection.
Family members of workers detained by ICE officials on Friday are speaking in front of the Los Angeles warehouse where the raid took place. “My family and I haven’t had communication with my dad,” Yurien Contreras, a high school student, said through tears. She said she has been telling her 4-year-old brother that their father is still at work.
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ICE in this context is an abbreviation for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We also list ICE as an abbreviation for “in case of emergency,” “internal combustion engine,” and “International Cultural Exchange.”
‘Ammunition’
Ammunition also saw a spike in lookups this week.
Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi was in the middle of a live cross, covering the protests against the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy in Los Angeles, California. As Tomasi spoke to the camera, microphone in hand, an LAPD officer in the background appeared to target her directly, hitting her in the leg with a rubber bullet. Earlier, reports emerged that British photojournalist Nick Stern was undergoing emergency surgery after also being hit by the same “non-lethal” ammunition.
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We define three closely related senses of ammunition: “the projectiles with their fuses, propelling charges, or primers fired from guns,” “explosive military items (such as grenades or bombs),” and “cases containing an explosive charge for blasting.” Ammunition is also used figuratively to refer to material used in attacking or defending a position.
‘Fascism’
Fascism has been a top lookup almost daily for quite some time, likely due to general curiosity or debate about the word’s definition and its heavy use on social media. This week was no different, though fascism was also in the news in relation to protests in Los Angeles and around the country.
She’d found … Juan Lux, who typically sells near the Federal Building but set up his hot-dog cart and fruit stand at the corner of Grand Park, next to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, for the rally. “It’s important to help out the protesters,” Lux said. Behind him, in the park, the crowd hoisted “Resist Fascism” banners and “ICE OUT” signs. “I’ve done it before with other protests, and I'm just happy to be out here, helping out.”
—After more than two hours of heated criticism from the public, the Detroit school board reversed course and issued a statement condemning the detention of a district high school student by federal immigration officials. … Sherry Gay Dagnogo, a board member, said that while the board stands with Western and the Southwest Detroit community, “We are cautious in not bringing unnecessary attention that will prevent us moving smoothly in having this issue addressed.” That wasn't enough for many of the people who spoke before the board during Tuesday’s meeting, with some suggesting the board is afraid that speaking out will affect the district's federal funding. One urged a stronger public statement, saying, “It has never worked to cower in the face of fascism.”
—With the deployment of U.S. military forces in the streets of Los Angeles to quell relatively small and mostly peaceful protests against mass arrests of suspected undocumented workers and their families, it is clear that fascism and authoritarian rule have already supplanted due process of law, human rights and democracy in the United States.
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Fascism refers to a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition. Fascism is also used more broadly for a philosophy or system with a combination of fascist values and governing structures, as well as “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.”
‘Mercurial’
Lookups for mercurial were higher than usual. The word has been used to describe two legends of popular music who died this week.
Sly Stone, the driving force behind Sly and the Family Stone, a multiracial American band whose boiling mix of rock, soul and psychedelia embodied 1960s idealism and helped popularize funk music, has died at the age of 82, his family said on Monday. … The confident and mercurial Stone played a leading role in introducing funk, an Afrocentric style of music driven by grooves and syncopated rhythms, to a broader audience.
—Brian Wilson has died at the age of 82, and will be remembered as one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century, as well as a mercurial genius who battled mental health problems—and the industry—to create pop masterpiece after pop masterpiece.
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Mercurial is used to describe someone who has the same qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or to the influence of the planet Mercury, or someone whose moods change often in quick and unexpected ways.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Desiderium’
Most of us are familiar with the word desire, which, in addition to a number of other things, can mean “something desired.” And some of us are familiar with this word’s less-common cousin, desideratum, which means “something desired as essential” (the plural of this word is desiderata). Yet far too few of us are familiar with the least-known member of this particular family, the word desiderium. All of these words come from the Latin desiderare (meaning “to long for”), yet only desiderium carries the meaning of a feeling of loss or grief for something that we no longer have, and wish very much that we did.
