gaslight

[ gas-lahyt ]
See synonyms for gaslight on Thesaurus.com
verb (used with object),gas·light·ed or gas·lit, gas·light·ing.
  1. 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?

  2. 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
  1. light produced by the combustion of illuminating gas.

  2. a gas burner or gas jet for producing light through the process of combustion.

adjective

Origin of gaslight

1
First recorded in 1800–10; gas + light1;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

Other words from gaslight

  • gas·light·ed, gas·lit, adjective
  • gas·light·ing, noun

Words Nearby gaslight

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use gaslight in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for gaslight

gaslight

/ (ˈɡæsˌlaɪt) /


noun
  1. a type of lamp in which the illumination is produced by an incandescent mantle heated by a jet of gas

  2. the light produced by such a lamp

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012