Old talk I would argue that as the article focuses on the use of gay as it refers to sexuality the first sentence should reflect that by saying that in addition to gay referring to homosexuals it also can be used to mean joyous and glad Such a revision would also emphasize the predominate use of gay as a term for sexuality and its secondary use as a synonym for happy Gay still means joyous and glad it s just that the other meaning is more common This word may safely be used only to mean homosexual The Globe and Mail Style Book Who cares what the Globe and Mail Style Book thinks The other meaning is still valid Just because you probably wouldn t use it in every day speech to mean joyous or glad doesn t mean that these are invalid meanings 22 30 21 Jul 2003 UTC Who care what all the dictionary definitions of a term are This is an encyclopedia and as such we write about encyclopedic topics the alternate dictionary definition of the word gay doesn t fit the bill although mentioning it somewhere in the historical development section of this article should be fine The encyclopedic topic here is the contemporary usage of the term its older meaning is just a part of that history The secondary usage should not get first mention But we clearly use and understand gay to mean joyous and glad in the present day Everyone is familiar with the refrain don we now our gay apparel and does not think that it means we are going to dress up as homosexuals everyone understands the meaning of the phrase the gay Nineties and particularly there are still gay blades 13 03 22 Jul 2003 UTC Gay Paris with a french accent does not usually mean homosexual paris I agree with this This aspect is confusing as a person looking for homosexual would be redirected by the comment at the top while missing significant content regarding the use of gay to mean homosexual lower down the page Perhaps a See also would be more appropriate Is there evidence that the gay had a connotation of promiscuity as the meaning transitioned from happy to same sex love I heard it as an explanation for how gay suddenly acquired its current definition but I haven t yet searched for the source of that This is such a tiresome debate The word s usage has changed from jolly to homosexual That s the sort of thing that happens to words in a living language Dictionaries reflect that chance in usage through a changed definition Just as the term Christian began as an insult and eventually got subverted into an identity term this word has changed its meaning The term homosexual it should be noted has pathologically origins and is offensive to some gay and lesbian people Some are now proposing the word queer as a collective term e g Queer Culture but this has yet to find a home in the heart of every gay person What debate I don t think there s any debate I found the explanation in a history of the word offered by a womens right and gender equity group I didn t find the source so that I could investigate and put it here to see if someone actually know where it comes from Moreover dictionaries may reflect changes in word but they also should find how the word changes It s partly the reason that Oxford Dictionary became popular because it told how a word changed in spelling pronunciation and meaning An encyclopaedium while not a dictionary entry should offer a sourced and more detailed explanation of how the word acquired its meaning because people would like to know and such a long history can t be given in the dictionary There s nothing wrong with finding out that gay might have first changed meaning into a euphemism for promiscuous because gay might have reflected a wider usage for a large group of people performing on Broadway perhaps later referring to prostitution gay old time perhaps before the meaning narrowed even more to focusing on the group of men with same sex desire That s the way word history can change along with whether words become more negative or positive This would be very interesting to know because then we can explain the split personality of gay between being happy and being queer It might have had an intermediate meaning for promiscuous before gay men used it as a code word to describe themselves It might not be