American dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster named “Gaslighting” its word of the year. The number of searches for the word on its website increased by 1,740 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, gaslighting is psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that “causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perceptions of reality, or memories, and usually results in confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, insecurity of their own emotional or mental stability and dependence on the offender.’
It’s a nasty tool often used by relationship abusers—and by politicians and other newsmakers. Gaslighting can occur between romantic partners, within the extended family unit, and between friends. It can also be a corporate tactic or a way to mislead the public. Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster editor-at-large for the Associated Press, said Monday: “It (gaslighting) is a word that has spread so quickly in the English language, especially in the last four years, that it was a surprise to me and to many of us.”
“It was a word I looked up a lot every day of the year,” Sokolowski added. He pointed out that “gaslighting” spent all of 2022 in Merriam-Webster’s top 50 search words to earn top dog of the year status. Merriam-Webster chooses its word of the year based entirely on data. Sokolowski and his team culled the most frequently searched evergreen words to see which word had seen a significant increase in the previous year, the Associated Press further reported.
