Trending: β€˜morass’

Lookups spiked 6,100% on May 15, 2020

Why are people looking up morass?

Maras, the plural form of mara, defined as β€œa long-legged long-eared rodent (Dolichotis magellanica) closely related to the cavies and widely distributed in southern South America,” spiked mightily in lookups on May 15th, 2020, because of … well, to be honest, we think it was because of a widespread inquiry into the spelling of morass.

What does morass mean?

The word actually used by Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, was morass, which we define in the following ways: β€œmarsh,” β€œa situation that traps, confuses, or impedes,” and β€œan overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture.” Cuomo had very little, if anything, to say about South American rodents.

Citations

The Americans, however, after a severe contest, were at last obliged to give way, and retreat across the morass.
β€” The Military Repository (New York, NY), 2 Jan. 1797

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.

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