“Gaslighting” — mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful — is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.
Lookups for the word on merriam-webster.com increased 1,740 percent from last year. However, something else happened. There was not a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.
The gaslighting was pervasive.
Photo: AP
“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,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, said in an interview ahead of yesterday’s unveiling.
“It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” he said.
There were deepfakes and the dark Web. There were deep states and fake news. And there was a whole lot of trolling.
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.”
Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships — and by politicians and other newsmakers. 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 is also “medical gaslighting,” when a healthcare professional dismisses a patient’s symptoms or illness as “all in your head.”
Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based solely on data.
“Gaslighting” spent all of this year in the top 50 words looked up on merriam-webster.com to earn top dog word of the year status, Sokolowski said.
Rounding out this year’s Top 10 are:
“Oligarch,” driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Omicron,” the persistent COVID-19 variant and the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.
“Codify,” as in turning abortion rights into federal law.
“Queen consort,” what King Charles III’s wife, Camilla, is newly known as.
“Raid,” as in the search of former US president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
“Sentient,” with lookups brought on by Google canning the engineer who claimed an unreleased artificial-intelligence system had become sentient.
“Cancel culture,” enough said.
“LGBTQIA,” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual, aromantic or agender.
— “Loamy,” which many Wordle users tried back in August, although the right word that day was “clown.”
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