# gaslight

Pronunciation: say "GAS-lyt" US /ˈɡæsˌlaɪt/, UK /ˈɡæslaɪt/

## Verb

1. To manipulate someone into doubting their own memory, perception of reality, or sanity, typically with harmful intent.
   - Simple: To trick someone into doubting their memory, what is real, or their own mind, usually to harm them.
   - _For years her husband gaslighted her, moving her keys and then insisting she had lost them._
   - _Abusive managers sometimes gaslight employees by denying instructions they clearly gave._
2. To deceive or trick someone, or to lie to them.
   - Simple: To trick someone or tell them lies.
   - _Honestly, that trailer gaslit everyone into thinking it was a horror movie._
   - _Online sellers gaslight shoppers with fake 'only two left' warnings all the time._

## Noun

3. A lamp that burns illuminating gas, or town gas, supplied through pipes.
   - Simple: A lamp that gives light by burning gas that comes through pipes.
   - _The old theater still has its original gaslights fixed along the walls._
   - _A single gaslight hissed above the door of the boarding house._
4. The light given off by the burning gas in a lamp fed with piped illuminating gas.
   - Simple: The light that comes from a lamp that burns gas.
   - _She read the letter by gaslight, squinting at the faded ink._
   - _The wet street looked soft and yellow in the gaslight._

## Origin

**Meanings 3–4** — From gas (the fuel gas) + light.
**Meanings 1–2** — From Patrick Hamilton's 1938 stage play Gas Light and its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations, in which a husband tries to convince his wife and others that she is insane by secretly changing small things around her.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/gaslight (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).