Gaslighting is so pervasive that Merriam-Webster has made it the Word of the Year for 2022.
Lookups for the term “mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful,” were up by 1740 percent this year.
Oddly, there was no one event that caused a spike.
That’s what typically happens with the word of the year.
The company says it was looked up frequently every single day. I
n case you didn’t know, the word was brought to life 84 years ago with the 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton, called “Gaslight.”