gaslight
/ˈɡaslʌɪt
/noun
1A type of lamp in which an incandescent mantle is heated by a jet of burning gas: an era of gaslights and horse-drawn carriages...
- Street gaslights add their glow to the swimming moonshine and are reflected in the siren's diamond coronet and huge dark eyes that know the secrets of the deep.
- As paved roads, the telegraph, telephone lines, gaslights, and electric lines caused the city to change, so did the CPD.
- In 1878, he established Edison Electric Light Company and announced plans to invent safe electric lights to take the place of Shanghai's dangerous gaslights.
1.1 [mass noun] The light produced by a gaslight: in the gaslight she looked paler than ever...
- The same decade saw the foundation of the South Kensington Museum, endowed with an exemplary collection for craftsmen to learn from, and soon lit by gaslight in order to encourage working people to visit the collections in the evening.
- ‘Van Gogh mentioned in his letters that his paintings looked different in daylight and gaslight,’ said Bluhm.
- The first public gas company in the world was set up in London in 1812, and Westminster Bridge was the first public thoroughfare to be illuminated by gaslight.
verb (gaslights, gaslighting, gaslighted) [with object]
Manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity: in the first episode, Karen Valentine is being gaslighted by her husband...
- A husband who tells his wife that she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder when she becomes frustrated because she is consistently being told that things that were said or done didn't happen, is gaslighting his wife.
- How do you know if you are being gaslighted?
- We've always argued, but lately she's accusing me of gaslighting her.
From the storyline of the film Gaslight (1944), in which a man psychologically manipulates his wife into believing that she is going insane
Derivatives
gaslit
/ adjective ...- From that came all the images of some upper-class fellow in a top hat and cape skulking through foggy gaslit Whitechapel.
- Torontonians can celebrate Hogmanay with live and traditional music in the gaslit surroundings of Mackenzie House.
- Anopheles mosquitoes prefer nocturnal feedings; their habit of flying toward light sources may have made them especially obnoxious in gaslit rooms with open windows.