The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Parents
In 2026, the word Americans are Googling most just to understand what it means is “gaslighting.” Not love, not money, not any of the practical things that dominate everyday life — a term for psychological manipulation. And with fascism, democracy, propaganda, and narcissist all cracking the top 25, the list starts to read less like a vocabulary quiz and more like a ledger of which words, in 2026, were confusing enough to send people reaching for a search bar.
Scrolling further down the top 25, civic and political terms make up the largest share of the list. “Democracy,” “bias,” “justice,” “equity,” “socialism,” “republic,” and “propaganda” all appear. Emotional vocabulary shows up alongside them: narcissist, anxiety, apathy, and stress. Everyday objects and tasks barely appear — though the list does include grammar terms like metaphor, adjective, and hyperbole, along with science, philosophy, and niche.
A spokesperson for Unscramblerer sorted the findings into three categories: emotional words (gaslighting, love, empathy, narcissist, anxiety, stress, apathy), societal words (fascism, democracy, justice, equity, culture, socialism, republic, bias, propaganda, inflation), and educational words (metaphor, hyperbole, adjective, science, philosophy, fiction). Taken together, the spokesperson noted, “people are searching for definitions to better understand personal experiences and public conversations.”
