News Kim Jong-un calls Trump a 'dotard,' and searches for the word skyrocket Merriam-Webster reported that lookups for 'dotard' were 'high as a kite' By Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen. EW's editorial guidelines Published on September 21, 2017 08:12PM EDT Photo: Xinhua/Li Muzi via Getty Images; Inset: STR/AFP/Getty Images If there’s one thing we can count on in these uncertain times, it’s that Merriam-Webster will be there to explain words to us — and the current administration — with a healthy dose of snark. The dictionary jumped back into the global conversation Thursday afternoon when Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, responded to President Trump’s threats against his country with a promise to “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” Kim’s comments had people racing to their phones and computers to look up the word “dotard,” prompting Merriam-Webster to tweet out the definition and note that “searches for ‘dotard’ are high as a kite.” According to Merriam-Webster, the official definition of “dotard” is “a person in his or her dotage,” meaning a person in the later years of their life in “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.” The social media account for M-W also got into the etymology of the word, noting that “dotard” meant “imbecile” when first used in the 14th century.