Gaslighting

Today, we flip the switch on “gaslight.” The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. 

Have you ever accused someone of “gaslighting”? That is, have you ever felt or seen someone manipulated by having their sanity questioned?  

To “gaslight” someone is an interesting figure of speech. Most metaphors are symbolic, borrowing an aspect of one thing to describe something unrelated, like when we say a “lightbulb turned on in my head.” 

But when we use “gaslight” as a verb we’re not emphasizing it as a primitive form of lighting. Rather, we’re making a complicated reference to a 1944 Hollywood movie, and the previous film and play on which it is based. The story is set in the 1880s, and follows an evil man who marries a young woman because he thinks a fortune is stashed in the attic of their house. When he turns on the upstairs gaslights while searching for the treasure, she can't help but notice the lights flickering below. The husband dismisses his wife’s questions by pretending the gaslight is perfectly stable. To cover up his own deceit, he tries to convince her she’s crazy.

Gaslight’s 1880’s setting 

Disturbed by lighting, in a scene from Gaslight

Today, every time we use “gaslight” as a verb, we’re drawing on that old movie, whether we’ve seen the film or not. It’s a measure of how much movies shape our culture and vocabulary, long after a movie was made. It’s also a reminder of why it’s worth knowing the original story behind the catchphrase, to truly understand why the use of “gaslighting” as a verb continues to grow. 

The first recorded use of “gaslighting” as a verb occurred in 1961, in a work of clinical psychology. It grew in public use over the rest of the twentieth century, and really took off in the 2010s, when digital technology and social media made news more decentralized and easily manufactured. By 2022, “gaslighting” was Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year.” Defined as a “deliberate conspiracy to mislead,” gaslighting is sometimes associated with “fake news,” deepfakes, and the unverifiable information provided by artificial intelligence. 

Today, we might say, we’re all a little like that innocent young bride in the movie Gaslight, who learns to trust her instincts and objective data like the physical properties of flickering gaslight. Power lies in questioning rhetoric, and looking for truth in what can be proven or known. The movie, Gaslight, and the original play on which it is based, may be set in a remote time before electric lighting, but the issues of intimidation and deception that the movie portrays remain as pressing as ever. That the verb, “gaslight,” continues to be a powerful cultural reference reminds us that while distortion and deception may always be part of the information age, so too is our power to name and resist it. 

Gaslight billboard, 1944, © MGM

Once we name "gaslight" for what it is, it can't dim us anymore.

I’m Karen Fang, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work. 

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Merriam-Webster Word of the Year for 2022

Alissa Wilkinson, “What is gaslighting? The 1944 film Gaslight is the best explainer,” Vox, January 21, 2017. 

Kate Abramson, On Gaslighting, Princeton University Press, 2024

This Episode first aired April 28, 2026.