The full list of the most frequently looked-up words on the Merriam-Webster Online Web site is as follows:

Filibuster, which actually got off to a slow start in the beginning of the month, began nearly topping the list of most frequently looked up words just as soon as the Senate came back into session on May 9 and stayed there until the compromise deal was struck on May 23, after which interest fell off quickly.

The curious case was inept, a word that ranked No. 100 last month but that reached the No. 8 spot in May. For reasons that are still unclear, inept began moving up the list on April 28 and has stayed near the top ever since. The folks who watch such things at Merriam-Webster have thought of several explanations—politics, movie reviews, television shows—but really aren’t sure. Do you have a theory? Write to us at Comments@Word.com. If we get some good answers, we’ll share them in a future issue.

One way or the other, a lot of people were interested in inept, so you can read more about inept in this month’s Word Profile.