Gaslighting: What the Word Means, Where It Came From, and How It Works

Gaslighting describes a pattern of psychological manipulation in which one person tries to make another doubt their own reality, memory, or perceptions, according to the mental-health resource Simply Psychology. The manipulator denies events, twists facts, or insists the other person is remembering things wrong until the target starts to distrust their own judgment.

Where the term comes from

The word traces back to "Gas Light," a 1938 stage play later adapted into a 1944 film, in which a husband secretly dims the gas-powered lights in his home and then denies anything has changed, convincing his wife she is imagining things, Simply Psychology reports. Academics used the phrase "the Gas Light phenomenon" in a 1969 paper, and Robin Stern brought the concept to a wider audience with her 2007 book "The Gaslight Effect," per the same source.

Merriam-Webster named "gaslighting" its 2022 Word of the Year after dictionary lookups for the term rose 1,740% compared with the previous year, CBS News reported. The publisher's editor at large, Peter Sokolowski, said the word's rapid rise in everyday use surprised even the dictionary's own staff, and noted a smaller search spike after actress Angela Lansbury — who starred in the 1944 film — died in October 2022.

How the dictionary and psychologists define it

Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as manipulation that "causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories," according to CBS News's report on the word-of-the-year announcement. Simply Psychology describes it more broadly as a type of psychological manipulation in which one person seeks to make another doubt their own reality, memory, or perceptions — stressing it is a recognizable pattern of behavior rather than an official clinical diagnosis.

Common tactics

Simply Psychology lists a set of recurring tactics used in gaslighting, from flatly denying that an event happened to rewriting the history of a relationship so the manipulator always comes out blameless.

• Denial — insisting an event or statement never happened
• Shifting blame — turning a confrontation around so the victim appears at fault
• Minimizing — dismissing someone's feelings as an overreaction
• Withholding — refusing to engage or pretending not to understand, so the other person second-guesses themselves
• Countering — directly questioning the victim's memory of events
• Diverting or discrediting — changing the subject or spreading doubt about the victim to others
• Rewriting history — retelling past events in a way that favors the manipulator

Where gaslighting shows up

While the term began with a fictional marriage, Simply Psychology identifies several settings where the same pattern appears, each with its own label.

The same source links gaslighting behavior to factors such as having experienced it in childhood, low empathy, or traits associated with narcissistic personality disorder, while warning signs in victims include persistent self-doubt, excessive apologizing, and difficulty trusting their own judgment.

Why the term is trending again

Brazilian streaming platform Globoplay built an entire series around the concept. "Eu Não Era Louca, Era Casada" ("I Wasn't Crazy, I Was Married"), which premiered October 6, 2026, follows Beatriz, a gallery owner played by Fernanda Rodrigues, whose husband Vítor, played by Ricardo Pereira, manipulates her into doubting her own sanity in order to seize her fortune, according to the entertainment outlet O Universo da TV. The vertical-format series, created by Ecila Pedroso and produced by Estúdios Globo, tells the story in 50 episodes of two to three minutes each, designed for mobile viewing, with supporting roles for Barbara Reis, Daniel Rocha, Ilvio Amaral, and Danielle Winits.