Trending: ‘dastardly’

Lookups spiked 800% on September 18-19, 2019

Why are people looking up dastardly?

Dastardly skulked its way to the top of our lookups on September 18-19, 2019, after President Trump was asked how he'd respond to Iran over an attack on Saudi oil facilities.

“It’s very easy to attack,” he told reporters on Wednesday in Los Angeles, but then added: “How did going into Iraq work out?”

“There’s plenty of time to do some dastardly things,” he said.
— Josh Wingrove, Bloomberg, 18 Sept. 2019

What does dastardly mean?

Dastardly is defined as "cowardly" or "characterized by underhandedness or treachery."

Where does dastardly come from?

The adjective dates to the 16th century, formed rather straightforwardly from the Middle English noun dastard, meaning "coward" or "a person who acts treacherously or underhandedly."

Citations

Albe it, who can be borne with so rigo rous a dysposytion (I wyll nat saye dumppyshe and dastardly) whyche maye nat be taken with suche kynde of pleasurs, namely if he maye attayne them without the offense of god & man without the losse of his good name?
—Desiderius Erasmus (trans. by R. Tavernour), A ryght frutefull epystle, 1536

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.