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Merriam-Webster picks ‘gaslighting’ as word of 2022

NEW YORK: ‘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% in 2022 over the year before. But there wasn’t a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it is usually with the chosen word of the year. The gaslighting was pervasive. It’s a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years,” said

Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor ahead of Monday’s unveiling.

“It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” he said. There were deep states and fake news. 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 perpetrator.”

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2022-11-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://news.dtnext.in/article/282260964477870

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