Final Presidential Debate: Yes, Bigly Is a Word, According to the Dictionary
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battled it out in the final presidential debate on Wednesday night and as usual, the GOP nominee made waves, this time for using a word that is now sweeping the nation: “Bigly.”
“We’re going to speed up the process, bigly,” Trump said when referring to immigration. We Think.
It caused mass confusion on Twitter as voters wondered if he said “bigly” or “big league.” The “bigly” versus “big league” debate is old, but if he said “bigly,” we now have confirmation that it’s an actual word. You be the judge:
.@realDonaldTrump is losing this debate "bigly." #debatenight pic.twitter.com/orQtB1vmRJ
— Carbonated.TV (@CarbonatedTV) October 20, 2016
Dictionary.com chimed in, verifying that “bigly” is an actual word. However comedian Bill Maher disagrees, tweeting, “Is ‘bigly’ a word? No, its not. That should be disqualifying itself!”
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We’re going to believe Dictionary.com on this one, but the word will continue to get mocked and will probably have a mention on “Saturday Night Live” soon, especially as at one point, 64 percent of people on Dictionary.com were looking it up.
The website says “bigly” is a adverb meaning “biggish.” It lists synonyms as huge, immense, bulky, capacious, voluminous and extensive. Who knew?
Big league or bigly?? #debatenight We still aren't sure, but bigly IS a word, we promise!
Bigly: https://t.co/7Y89ogwwBm
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) October 20, 2016
64% of our users are looking up "bigly" right now.
("Big league" is only 0.04% of our active lookups, to put that in perspective.) #debate
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) October 20, 2016
"Bigly" is still overshadowing all other lookups, but we also see "condemn" in our top 5 searches right now from the #debate
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) October 20, 2016
Our closing remarks: Very interesting words spiked in our searches tonight from the #debate:
Amnesty
Bigly
Indubitably
Espionage
Cavalier— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) October 20, 2016
Check out some of the Twitter reaction:
Well. . . . .I think someone lost the #debatenight BIGLY!
— Anthony Petchel (@e8daysawek) October 20, 2016
What's a nasty woman to do? We'll vote in numbers so huge. Bigly. #debatenight
— Eileen (@EileenBillinson) October 20, 2016
I am concerned with the outcome of this election….bigly???? #debatenight
— Sasha Norgaard (@De_Sasha) October 20, 2016
ALL that the Trump trolls care about is that he said "big league" and not "bigly" ????????????#debatenight
— Scott Nevins (@ScottNevins) October 20, 2016
3rd debate. And I still dont know. Is it #bigly or #bigleague?! Goddamit man, enunciate. #debatenight
— lydia (@lydia_koh) October 20, 2016
Okay I missed bigly tonight and saw it trending, thought it was an album or something. Nope just #Trumpism #debatenight
— Elsa O'Callaghan (@elsa_oc) October 20, 2016
I tried to type "bigly" and my iPad autocorrected to "bigot."
— Felicia M Miyakawa (@fmmiyakawa) October 20, 2016
Is "bigly" a word? No, its not. That should be disqualifying itself!
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) October 20, 2016
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