File Photo by Getty.The Origin and Semantic Development of Gaslighting
Merriam-Webster has chosen "gaslighting" as its word of the year for 2022. “Loamy,” which many Wordle users tried back in August, though the right word that day was “clown.”.“LGBTQIA,” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual, aromantic or agender.“Sentient,” with lookups brought on by Google canning the engineer who claimed an unreleased AI system had become sentient.“Raid,” as in the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.“Queen consort,” what King Charles’ wife, Camilla is newly known as.“Codify,” as in turning abortion rights into federal law.“Omicron,” the persistent COVID-19 variant and the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.“Oligarch,” driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Last year’s pick was “vaccine.” Rounding out this year’s Top 10 are: “Gaslighting,” Sokolowski said, spent all of 2022 in the top 50 words looked up on to earn top dog word of the year status. Some of the droves who looked up “gaslighting” this year might have wanted to know, simply, if it’s one or two words, or whether it’s hyphenated. They don’t slice and dice why people look up words, which can be anything from quick spelling and definition checks to some sort of attempt at inspiration or motivation. Sokolowski and his team weed out evergreen words most commonly looked up to gauge which word received a significant bump over the year before. Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based solely on data. It has possibly an idea of strategy or a long-term plan.” It’s something that has a little bit more devious quality to it.
“And once one is aware of that deception, it’s not just a straightforward lie, as in, you know, I didn’t eat the cookies in the cookie jar. “There is this implication of an intentional deception,” Sokolowski said. READ MORE: Dictionary companies choose same word of the year: pandemic The term gaslighting was later used by mental health practitioners to clinically describe a form of prolonged coercive control in abusive relationships. She played Nancy Oliver, a young maid hired by Gregory and told not to bother his “high-strung” wife. The death of Angela Lansbury in October drove some interest in lookups of the word, Sokolowski said. Among other instances, he insists her complaints over the constant dimming of their London townhouse’s gaslights is a figment of her troubled mind.
The two marry after a whirlwind romance and Gregory turns out to be a champion gaslighter. One, George Cukor’s “Gaslight” in 1944, starred Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist and Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton. It birthed two film adaptations in the 1940s.
GASLIGHT MEANING IN ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL
There’s also “medical gaslighting,” when a health care professional dismisses a patient’s symptoms or illness as “all in your head.”ĭespite its relatively recent prominence - including “Gaslighter,” The Chicks’ 2020 album featuring the rousingly angry titular single - the word was brought to life more than 80 years ago with “Gas Light,” a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. It can be a corporate tactic, or a way to mislead the public. It can happen between romantic partners, within a broader family unit and among friends. Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships - and by politicians and other newsmakers. READ MORE: ‘Vaccine’ tops dictionary searches as Merriam-Webster chooses 2021 word of the year More broadly, the dictionary defines the word thusly: “The act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” Merriam-Webster’s top definition for gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that “causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” “It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” he said.
“It’s a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us,” said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s unveiling. READ MORE: ‘Yeehaw, bae,’ official Scrabble dictionary adds 500 new words There wasn’t a single event that drove significant spikes in curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year. Lookups for the word on increased 1,740 percent in 2022 over the year before. NEW YORK (AP) - “Gaslighting” - behavior that’s mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful - is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.
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