NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 鈥淕aslighting鈥 鈥 behavior that's mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful 鈥 is Merriam-Webster's word of the year.
Lookups for the word on increased 1,740% in 2022 over the year before. But something else happened. There wasn't a single event that drove significant spikes in curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.
The gaslighting was pervasive.
鈥淚t鈥檚 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,鈥 said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday's unveiling.
鈥淚t was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,鈥 he said.
There were and the There were and And there was a whole lot of
Merriam-Webster's top definition for gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that 鈥渃auses 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鈥檚 emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.鈥
More broadly, the dictionary defines the word thusly: "The act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one鈥檚 own advantage."
Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships 鈥 It can happen between romantic partners, within a broader family unit and among friends. It can be a corporate tactic, or a way to mislead the public. There's also 鈥渕edical gaslighting,鈥 when a health care professional dismisses a patient's symptoms or illness as 鈥渁ll in your head.鈥
Despite its relatively recent prominence 鈥 including featuring the rousingly angry titular single 鈥 the word was brought to life more than 80 years ago with 鈥淕as Light,鈥 a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton.
It birthed two film adaptations in the 1940s. One, George Cukor's 鈥淕aslight鈥 in 1944, starred Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist and Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton. The two marry after a whirlwind romance and Gregory turns out to be a champion gaslighter. Among other instances, he insists her complaints over the constant dimming of their London townhouse's gaslights is a figment of her troubled mind. It wasn't.
The in October drove some interest in lookups of the word, Sokolowski said. She played Nancy Oliver, a young maid hired by Gregory and told not to bother his 鈥渉igh-strung鈥 wife.
The term gaslighting was later used by mental health practitioners to clinically describe a form of prolonged coercive control in abusive relationships.
鈥淭here is this implication of an intentional deception,鈥 Sokolowski said. 鈥淎nd once one is aware of that deception, it鈥檚 not just a straightforward lie, as in, you know, I didn鈥檛 eat the cookies in the cookie jar. It鈥檚 something that has a little bit more devious quality to it. It has possibly an idea of strategy or a long-term plan.鈥
Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month chooses its word of the year based solely on data. Sokolowski and his team weed out evergreen words most commonly looked up to gauge which word received a significant bump over the year before.
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. Some of the droves who looked up 鈥済aslighting鈥 this year might have wanted to know, simply, if it's one or two words, or whether it's hyphenated.
“Gaslighting,” Sokolowski said, spent all of 2022 in the top 50 words looked up on to earn top dog word of the year status. Last year's Rounding out this year's Top 10 are:
鈥 driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
鈥 the persistent COVID-19 variant and the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.
鈥 as in turning abortion rights into federal law.
鈥 what King Charles鈥 wife, Camilla is newly known as.
鈥 as in the search of former President Donald Trump鈥檚 Mar-a-Lago home.
鈥 with lookups brought on by Google canning the engineer who claimed an unreleased AI system had become sentient.
鈥 enough said.
鈥 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual, aromantic or agender.
鈥 which many Wordle users tried back in August, though the right word that day was 鈥渃lown.鈥
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