Donald Trump is back with another bizarre claim. On Monday, during an award ceremony, the president claimed that he “invented” a word, which can be first traced back to the 1590s. Curious to know which word he was talking about? Well, it is “caravans,” a well-known word in the English language.
During the Oval Office event, he claimed that he was the inventor of “caravans,” and he used the word for the first time to describe groups of migrants. “The caravans — a name I think I came up with,” said Trump. However, he was not confident about his claim, as he added shortly after, “Maybe, maybe not.”
According to the Irish Star, the word’s origin can be traced to the Persian language. It is used to describe “a group of travelers.” Although it is not certain who first coined the term, it has been used for centuries in the English language.
BREAKING: Trump claims to have come up with the word “Caravans”:
FACT: The word caravan has been a part of the English language for over 500 years. pic.twitter.com/FIFBlQQAGn
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) December 15, 2025
Experts believe that the first time”caravan” was used in the English language was in the late 14th century to describe desert travelers. Later, the term was also used to describe horse-drawn carriages in Britain, and eventually it also became a term to use for modern recreational vehicles.
Rest assured, Donald Trump did not definitely “invent” the word, as he claimed on Monday. Given Trump’s frequent habit of making such bizarre claims, this comes as no surprise. In 2022, Trump claimed that he came up with “caravans.”
During a rally in Ohio, he used the term when referring to undocumented immigrants in the country. “You won’t take these horrible convicts and other people that you released into our country illegally, and you put them in caravans,” he said.
Trump: I made up the word caravan. I’m good at names
(???) pic.twitter.com/VwtGVyVZot
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 16, 2024
Then he claimed, “I came up with that term by the way. That was my term and fake news, and lots of other terms we came up with. Crooked Hillary, we came up with a lot of terms.” Well, while he could definitely take the credit for coming up with bizarre nicknames for his political rivals, including “Sleepy Joe” and “Laffin’ Kamala,” this well-known word is not his creation.
Even last month, Trump claimed to have come up with another word, “affordability.” It was quite shocking, given the “new word” was first used in 1910, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The word got quite popular in the 1950s-60s.
“They have this new word called ‘affordability’. And they don’t talk about it enough,” Trump said at that time, urging his fellow Republicans to use the word more. “We’ve done so much, energy is way down. Look at energy. We’ll have $2 gas. That brings everything else down. Groceries are way down, other than beef,” he said, making more claims while experts say America is suffering from inflation.
