What is a ‘key bump’? Merriam-Webster explains after Cawthorn interview.

Much less clear: the definition of “key bump.”

As it has so normally carried out in current decades, Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account delivered clarity. “People are speaking about ‘key bumps,’ ” it wrote in a Wednesday tweet, “and so we have a responsibility to tell you some factors about this.”

The “bump” in “key bump,” the dictionary stated, can be outlined as “a modest amount of an illicit drug when inhaled in powdered type at just one time.” As a result, an English speaker can “refer to ‘small amounts of drugs sniffed off a key’ as ‘key bumps,’ ” Merriam-Webster noted.

The tweet, which experienced more than 42,000 likes and retweets as of Thursday morning, explained what Cawthorn claimed he saw. But McCarthy instructed reporters the freshman Republican “did not inform the reality.”

Cawthorn did not reply to messages from The Washington Post on Wednesday or early Thursday.

Merriam-Webster’s “key bump” tweet was the next time this 7 days that the dictionary waded into the political discourse. On Tuesday, it addressed the time period “burner phone” right after The Submit and CBS Information claimed there was a gap of 7 several hours and 37 minutes in President Donald Trump’s phone logs during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. The Property committee investigating the insurrection is now seeking into no matter whether Trump made use of burner telephones that working day, in accordance to the report.

Trump, in response, claimed he experienced “no plan what a burner cellular phone is.”

But Merriam-Webster once more experienced an reply, tweeting out an article Tuesday describing that “burner,” in that context, “refers to one thing disposable, or that can not be traced.”

Merriam-Webster was also brief to react when Trump misused or misspelled words, together with “covfefe.” Kory Stamper, a former lexicographer at Merriam-Webster, advised The Post in 2017 that persons ended up turning to dictionaries to make feeling of latest situations.

“You’re looking at a great deal additional engagement online with dictionaries. Which is really unconventional — it’s not the SAT vocabulary text they are seeking up. They are truly tracking with the news in a definitely granular way,” Stamper reported.

Merriam-Webster did not right away reply to a request for comment.

Cawthorn created the claims about his congressional colleagues past 7 days on the podcast “Warrior Poet Society” after becoming requested no matter if everyday living in Washington was at all like the Netflix collection “House of Playing cards.”

Making an attempt to illustrate what he explained as the “sexual perversion that goes on in Washington,” Cawthorn mentioned he experienced been invited to an orgy by a colleague.

He also mentioned drug use, stating he viewed some of the extremely persons hoping to control Americans’ addictions “do a critical bump of cocaine.”

Politico claimed that Cawthorn achieved with McCarthy and Home Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Wednesday morning.

“I just informed him he’s missing my trust. He’s heading to have to generate it back,” McCarthy explained about Cawthorn, in accordance to Politico. “I mean, he’s bought a large amount of customers very upset.”

In the assembly, McCarthy mentioned Cawthorn admitted some of his statements in the podcast were being “exaggerated,” Axios reported.

“In the interview, he statements he viewed people do cocaine. Then when he arrives in he tells me, he says he thinks he noticed it’s possible a staffer in a parking garage from 100 yards absent,” McCarthy explained.

On Wednesday, neither “key” nor “bump” was named the dictionary’s word of the working day. Right after all, the dictionary wrote, the phrase “has not but demonstrated vast forex of use.”

As a substitute, the honors went to a a lot more proven phrase.

Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.