Trump fights sexism charge after vulgar Clinton jibe

Republican White House frontrunner Donald Trump fought off fresh accusations ofsexism Tuesday after he coined a vulgar new term of abuse while attacking rival Hillary Clinton.

Whipping up a raucous crowd of supporters in Michigan on Monday night, Trump's scorn for his Democratic rival took a sexually graphic and personal turn.

Recalling the 2008 presidential race, in which Hillary lost out to Barack Obama in the battle for the Democratic nomination, the billionaire real estate mogul appeared to reach for a Yiddish term.

"She was favored to win, and she got schlonged. She lost, I mean she lost," he said, apparently turning the noun "schlong" -- a penis -- into a verb.

Then, with the partisan crowd cheering him on, he turned to an incident on Saturday when Clinton returned late to a televised debate after a bathroom break.

"I know where she went, it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting."

Clinton did not address Trump's comments directly, but when a young woman at a campaign rally asked her what she would do about bullying, she used the opportunity to launch a not-so-veiled attack on her Republican rival.

"We shouldn't let anybody bully his way into the presidency, because that is not who we are as Americans," Clinton told a crowd at a school in Keota, Iowa.

Trump returned to the fray Tuesday evening with a series of tweets flatly denying any intention to slur Clinton -- and insisting that the offending term was commonplace slang.

"Once again, #MSM (mainstream media) is dishonest. 'Schlonged' is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got 'schlonged' that meant beaten badly," he tweeted.