"Gaslighting" -- mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful -- is Merriam-Webster's word of the year. There wasn't a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year. "It's a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday's unveiling. "It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year," he said. There were deepfakes and the dark web.