Trending: ‘sedition,’ ‘seditious’

Lookups spiked 15,000% on January 13, 2022

Why are people looking up the words sedition and seditious?

The words seditious and sedition spiked on January 13, 2022, following the arrest by the FBI of Stewart Rhodes, a leader of the Oath Keepers, for his participation in the insurrection of January 6, 2021.

The crime he is charged with is seditious conspiracy.

What do the words sedition and seditious mean?

Seditious is defined as:

: disposed to arouse or take part in or guilty of sedition

Sedition is defined as:

: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority

Where do the words sedition and seditious come from?

Sedition entered English in the 1300s, part of a wave of legal terms that were introduced during that period from the French spoken by the Normans.

It ultimately comes from the Latin word literally meaning "separation," from sed-, ("apart") + -ition, ("act of going").

What is notable about the use of the words sedition and seditious?

According to the New York Times:

The arrest of Mr. Rhodes was a major step forward in the sprawling investigation of the Capitol attack and the case marked the first time that prosecutors had filed charges of sedition.

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.