Merriam-Webster tweeted a link to the definition of the legal term "suborn," in apparent response to a report by BuzzFeed that President Trump Donald John TrumpObama calls on Senate not to fill Ginsburg's vacancy until after election Planned Parenthood: 'The fate of our rights' depends on Ginsburg replacement Progressive group to spend M in ad campaign on Supreme Court vacancy MORE had ordered former personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

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In its tweet, Merriam-Webster defined suborn as intended "to induce to commit perjury" and "broadly: to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing."

The tweet links to a story on its website headlined, "12 Words from the Wrong Side of the Law" with a sub-headline, "Crime doesn't pay, but vocabulary might."





'Suborn'

- specifically: to induce to commit perjury

- broadly: to induce secretly to do an unlawful thinghttps://t.co/fwgQ0kjVlN — Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) January 18, 2019

The tweet did not specifically mention the BuzzFeed report , though it was sent out during a day when the report dominated headlines.

The report stated that Trump had directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign, citing unnamed federal investigators.

President Trump on Friday accused Cohen of lying to reduce his prison time after the publication of the BuzzFeed report.

Trump, after quoting a Fox News reporter noting that Cohen had been convicted on perjury and fraud charges, tweeted that Cohen is “lying to reduce his jail time,” an argument he has previously used to cast his former lawyer as untrustworthy.



Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, ripped the BuzzFeed report , calling it “categorically false.”

“Any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false. Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar,” Giuliani said in a statement Friday.



“Today’s claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohen’s malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence.”

Other news outlets have not confirmed BuzzFeed’s reporting as of Friday afternoon.

Merriam-Webster has seemingly waded into political and social topics before. The 188-year-old company chose “justice” as its word of the year for 2018, for example.