gay
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: gā
ipa: /ɡeɪ/
rhymes: -eɪ
Forms: form: gays
Etymology: From Middle English gay, from Old French gai (“joyful, laughing, merry”), usually thought to be a borrowing of Old Occitan gai (“impetuous, lively”), from Gothic *𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌴𐌹𐍃 (*gaheis, “impetuous”), merging with earlier Old French jai ("merry"; see jay), from Frankish *gāhi; both from Proto-Germanic *ganhuz, *ganhwaz (“sudden”). This is possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰengʰ- (“to stride, step”), from *ǵʰēy- (“to go”), but Kroonen rejects this derivation and treats the Germanic word as having no known etymology.
cognates and sense derivation
Cognate with Dutch gauw (“fast, quickly”), Westphalian Low German gau, gai (“fast, quick”), German jäh (“abrupt, sudden”).
Anatoly Liberman, following Frank Chance and Harri Meier, believes Old French gai was instead a native development from Latin vagus (“wandering, inconstant, flighty”), with *[w] > [g] as in French gaine.
The sense of homosexual (first recorded no later than 1937 by Cary Grant in the film Bringing Up Baby, and possibly earlier in 1922 in the poem "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" by Gertrude Stein) was shortened from earlier gay cat ("homosexual boy") in underworld and prison slang, itself first attested about 1935, but used earlier for a young tramp or hobo attached to an older one.
Pejorative usage is probably due to hostility towards homosexuality.
The sense of ‘upright’, used in reference to a dog’s tail, probably derives from the ‘happy’ sense of the word.
Senses: examples: text: [headline] N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?
ref: 1969, “N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?”, in The Advocate:
text: "Same-sex dancing, as we call it, is quite legal," a gay named Lew Todd, who was one of the spokesmen, spoke up.
ref: 1974, Earl Wilson, Show Business Laid Bare:
text: Yet that does not mean that the issues, concerns and attitudes of gays and lesbians in the workplace are not important.
ref: 2003, Marilyn J. Davidson, Sandra L. Fielden, Individual Diversity and Psychology in Organizations, page 73:
text: Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.
ref: 2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20:
text: On June 28, 1970, young gays in the city held a “Gay-in” in Golden Gate Park, and Gay Sunshine ran a photo of some of the participants in their inaugural issue […]
ref: 2012, Todd J. Ormsbee, The Meaning of Gay, page 313:
coordinate_terms: lesbian#Noun
glosses: A homosexual, especially a male homosexual.
examples: text: Anti-gay persecution holds that you can pray the gay out of a person, or scare it out of them, or cajole it out of them.
glosses: Gayness: the quality of being gay.
examples: text: At a stall soon Mary bote / A hume-book full ov gays.
ref: 1839, Charles Clark, John Noakes and Mary Styles, st. 157:
text: I had no books to read, but plenty of gays to look at.
ref: 1892, P. H. Emerson, A Son of the Fens, page 73:
text: ‘Can't you mow the aftermath in the churchyard before Sunday?’ ‘Not time enough, sir, but I'll cut off they gays.’
ref: 1893, Cozens-Hardy, Broad Nrf., page 38:
text: There's a good child; look at the gays, and keep quiet.
ref: a. 1900, W. R. Eaton of Norfolk, quoted in 1900, Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary
glosses: Something which is bright or colorful, such as a picture or a flower.
examples: text: Look upon precepts in emblems, as they do to upon gays and pictures.
ref: 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
text: If however the stranger be suspected of “sailing under false colours," when they are all in familiar chat about nothing in particular, “Cousin Jacky” will take occasion to say to the new chum, “My dear; ded 'e ever see a duck clunk a gay?" […] no more deceived by him than a duck can be made to clunk (swallow) a gay (fragment of broken crockery).
ref: 1906, Cornish Notes & Queries: (first Series) (Cornish Telegraph, Peter Penn), page 132
glosses: An ornament, a knick-knack.
Synonyms: homosexual person and Thesaurus:male homosexual
Derived terms: sense: gay person
word: A-gay
sense: gay person
word: baby gay
sense: gay person
word: ex-gay
sense: gay person
word: gay bashing
sense: gay person
word: gold star gay
sense: gay person
word: homogay
sense: gay person
word: stage gay
word: pray away the gay
word: pray the gay away
word: trans the gay away
sense: colorful object or flower, ornament
word: nosegay