Psychology
What does Gaslighting mean?
Making a person doubt, on purpose and repeatedly, what they saw, heard or felt — until they distrust their own mind.
Definition
The word comes from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light and the films (UK 1940, Hollywood 1944 with Ingrid Bergman). In the plot the husband tampers with the house’s gas lights and denies it. The gerund gaslighting is not in the play.
One lie still does not close the term. The pattern is denying what happened, flipping blame, isolating witnesses, until the victim apologises for having seen the lamp. Online the verb stretched onto any disagreement; what still counts is repetition and an attack on trust in one’s own mind.
Origin
English comes from the play Gas Light (1938) and the 1944 American film. The OED points to the verb gaslight and the noun gaslighting in 1961, in Anthony F. C. Wallace’s Culture and Personality. Some cite a gaslight adjective as early as 1948; the play never uses the gerund.
History
From the play and Bergman speech moved into relationship talk. The American Dialect Society named gaslight its most useful word of 2016 (January 2017 meeting). Merriam-Webster made it Word of the Year in 2022. 2010s Twitter stretched the verb onto any disagreement; the pattern still asks for repetition and an attack on trust in one’s own mind.
How it emerged
The light that dips with no witness became the name of the trick: change the world and call the other person crazy. A short verb for the pattern was missing; the play gave the picture, Wallace gave the word.
Usage examples
That is not a different opinion, it is gaslighting.
You're crazy, on repeat, is the refrain.
Translations
- pt gaslighting / luz de gás
- en gaslighting
- es gaslighting
Synonyms
- gas light
- distorting perception
- denying the evidence