Twitter can't stop talking about 'dotard' after Kim Jong-un insults Donald Trump

Everyone's looking it up.
 By 
Sasha Lekach
 on 
Twitter can't stop talking about 'dotard' after Kim Jong-un insults Donald Trump
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's use of "dotard" caught everyone's attention. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un went off on Donald Trump, and everyone is impressed with the totalitarian ruler's insult and dictionary skills.

Kim's statement included many notable phrases -- none of them very flattering to the American president who threatened the dictatorship at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week.

One word in particular caught the Twitterverse's attention: dotard. As in, "I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire." (That's the actual translated quote.)

It sounds pretty vicious, but after everyone looked up what it meant, they were impressed, if not a bit scared.

Kim basically called Trump old and senile, but with a spot-on word that barely anyone uses. The dated word choice might come from how Kim's statement was translated. The Korean version connotes more of a "old beast lunatic" vibe.

Whatever it meant, the word struck a chord as "dotard" searches went through the roof. And the jokes and online commentary kept coming.

This is like "covfefe" all over again, but with a real word with a real meaning.

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Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.

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