Agnostic appears for the first time in a while, and the words swine, pandemic, and epidemic have dropped far from last month's highs — although recent declarations by the World Health Organization may bring these words back to the public's attention.

This past month also saw saturnine peak briefly after columnist Maureen Dowd used the word in the New York Times, but it didn't crack the monthly Top Twenty. Other words that got attention in May were peevish and strident. When you note that cynical was high on the list this month, it would seem that some negative impressions were lurking behind vocabulary searches.