Twitter reacts to third presidential debate

The pair debate in Las Vegas. Credit: Reuters

During the third and final US presidential debate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton traded fiery insults and refused to shake hands.

While the stand-out moment of the night was the Republican candidate's refusal to say whether he will accept the result of the presidential election, his branding of Ms Clinton as a "nasty woman" and saying he would rid the US of "bad hombres" coming over the border from Mexico were seized upon and ridiculed by social media users.

The billionaire businessman dominated discussion on Twitter with 59% of debate conversation focused on him.

The top tweeted moments of the debate were when the candidates discussed the treatment of women; Mr Trump refusing to say he will accept the election results; and the discussion about Russia and nuclear weapons, with Ms Clinton calling the Republican a "puppet" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump. Credit: Reuters
  • #badhombres

The term "#badhombres" was trending on Twitter for hours after Mr Trump promised that one of his first acts as president would be to remove drug lords from America.

"We have some bad hombres here and we are going to get them out", Mr Trump said of illegal immigrants.

Mr Trump's attempt at bilingualism quickly spawned memes and jokes on Twitter.

According to CBS News there was an 120,000% increase in internet searches on the word "hombre" in the hour after Mr Trump used it.

Rather than taking "hombre" to be the Spanish word for "man", many Twitter users decided that Mr Trump was instead talking about hair.

An ombre is a hairstyle where hair is dyed to be darker at the top than it is at the bottom.

  • #nastywoman

When Mr Trump interrupted Ms Clinton during the debate to brand her a "nasty woman", Twitter again quickly responded.

However, the combination of #badhombres and #nastywoman proved too much for some Twitter users.

  • #bigly

Viewers of the debate were also left puzzled by Mr Trump's use of the word "bigly".

While "bigly" is a word (it means "with great force") it is not a common one in the English language, but was used by the Republican on numerous occasions during the debate.