gaslight
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cause (a person) to doubt their judgment, memory, or sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.
How do you know if your partner is gaslighting you?
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to deceive (a person or group of people) through repetition of a constructed false narrative.
The cable news networks have been gaslighting their viewers with partisan coverage of the bill.
noun
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gaslights
plural
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light produced by the combustion of illuminating gas.
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a gas burner or gas jet for producing light through the process of combustion.
adjective
noun
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a type of lamp in which the illumination is produced by an incandescent mantle heated by a jet of gas
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the light produced by such a lamp
Usage
What does gaslighting mean? Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse or psychological manipulation involving distorting the truth in order to confuse or create doubt in another person to the point they question their sanity or reality.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of gaslight
First recorded in 1800–10; gas ( def. ) + light 1 ( def. ); gaslight def. 1 in reference to the 1944 movie Gaslight, in which an abusive husband secretly and repeatedly dims and brightens the gaslights in the house while accusing his wife of imagining the flickering
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He also has to gaslight us by claiming that this system he’s creating is normatively good!
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
Why Graham is willing to gaslight his followers like this isn’t a mystery.
From Salon ● May 15, 2026
Esther Crain, the author of ‘The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910,’ says gold interiors served a practical purpose: brightening rooms lit by gaslight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
But if they are willing to gaslight you about pay, exploring other options might be smart.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 21, 2026
Flight upon steep flight of stone and flickering gaslight.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
My research shows that gaslighting may be unintentional—for example, Audrey doesn't think her mother gaslights her on purpose.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 22, 2022
Our older son, who is almost 9, has narcissistic tendencies, gaslights his brother, rigs games in his favor and shows extreme overconfidence.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2022
He’s aghast and gaslights his way into the story.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2022
“We are not going to go away, under the cloud of unity that so often gaslights us about what parts of our agenda should be seriously considered,” she said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 21, 2020
In the dim glow of the harbor gaslights, she saw Dirix, one of the Dregs who’d been meant to make the journey with them.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
"It's really important for other people to know what's happened and to understand if they're being gaslighted as well, that they're not alone, that this is what's going on," she said.
From BBC ● Dec. 18, 2024
I have spoken to others who left; their stories are not mine to share, but feeling unsupported and gaslighted when trying to advocate are common themes.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 2024
“I was being gaslighted by Wells Fargo,” Doe said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2023
Elisabeth Epps, a lawyer and activist who was one of the protesters who sued, said the attorneys for the city she loves gaslighted the protesters during the trial, questioning their account of what happened.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 25, 2022
We had not much fancy for returning amongst the patriotic crowd gathered about the gaslighted Valhalla, so we made our way out.
From Round About the Carpathians by Andrew F. Crosse
And maybe let others make theirs, too—free of the gaslighting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
She told Lloyd she was once her friend but was met with "blame, rejection and gaslighting" when she tried to "shift blame" on to her husband.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
Theodore Boutrous, a Times lawyer, accused the administration at a hearing before Friedman in a Washington court on Monday of "gaslighting" and "bad faith."
From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026
“And I don’t want to say it’s disproportionate, but to a certain degree it is. You’re constantly filtering out, is this real danger? You are kind of constantly gaslighting yourself.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 8, 2026
The office space gaslighting gives way to horror trickery, slackening the plot’s tension until it nearly unravels in the final act.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2023
“And that they’ve been gaslit into thinking that they’re stagnant when they actually just know who they are,” says Stewart.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
But worse than the price hikes is the unsettling feeling that consumers are being gaslit by tech giants paying lip service to the gaming community while delaying product releases or peddling AI-generated “slop.”
From MarketWatch ● May 23, 2026
Liz Plank, on her Substack, describes the nausea and disorientation felt by women realizing this past week that we had all been gaslit yet again.
From Slate ● Feb. 12, 2026
It’s bad enough that the public is being gaslit about an ongoing measles outbreak that has so far spread across 25 states, infecting more than 700 people, with more than 540 in Texas alone.
From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2025
New Yorkers knew when the Fox sisters were at home because once again carriages full of spirit seekers lined the gaslit street, this time in front of their house.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
