gay
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: gā
ipa: /ɡeɪ/
rhymes: -eɪ
Forms: form: gayer
form: gayest
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: Cliff is gay, but his twin brother is straight.
text: He was not happy at the farm and went to a Western city where he associated with a homosexual crowd, being "gay," and wearing female clothes and makeup.
ref: 1947, Rorschach Research Exchange and Journal of Projective Techniqueshttp://books.google.com/books?id=vloZAAAAIAAJ, page 240
text: She couldn't even gain access from a family friend whose name was on the list, nor could she use her feminine charms to turn on the staff member, who revealed he was gay and was more impressed seeing Billy and Chuck enter the building.
ref: 2003, Michael McAvennie, The World Wrestling Entertainment Yearbook:
text: Of the dozen or so surviving articles, squibs, and letters to the editor, the most remarkable appeared in the Whip and Satirist’s February 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a cabal of gay men in New York's otherwise wholesome nightscape of brothels and riots. Moreover it identified the spider who minced so delicately along the wide-flung strands of the sodomitical web. "There is not one so degraded as this Captain Collins, the King of the Sodomites." He was a foreigner, an Englishman, in the long tradition of blaming homosexuality on the influence of aliens. Among the syndicate of perverts, the writer announced, "we find no Americans as yet—they are all Englishmen or French" (the English called homosexuality the French vice and the French the English vice; for the Whip it was the French and English vice).
ref: 2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133:
text: The two failed attempts to receive the necessary access to medicalized transition procedures by the renowned FTM activist Lou Sullivan—a gay man who refused to comply with the imperative that transsexual men must desire women— […]
ref: 2007, Kevin P. Murphy, Jason Ruiz, David Serlin, Queer Futures, Radical History Review (Duke University Press), page 58
text: Her adoptive mother fainted when Gail told her she was gay.
ref: 2009, Betty Jean Lifton, Lost & Found: the Adoption Experience, page 67:
glosses: Homosexual:
Possessing sexual and/or romantic attraction towards people one perceives to be the same sex or gender as oneself.
raw_tags: of a person
examples: text: gay and lesbian people
glosses: Homosexual:
Describing a homosexual man.
qualifier: strictly
examples: text: In fact, as several letter writers to the New York Times pointed out in their response to the article, the disjuncture between these two popularized penguins shows how radically separated from each other are communities of gay people and communities of right-wing religious conservatives: if the Christian fundamentalists had looked up "gay penguins" or even "penguins" on the Internet, they would have encountered several gay penguin sites, including the story of Roy and Silo, the Central Park Zoo gay penguin couple about whom a children's book was written; the saga of the gay penguin community at a German zoo; and the campaign of Gay Penguin for President (whose slogan was "George W. Bush talks the talk, but Gay Penguin walks the walk.")
ref: 2010, Noėl Sturgeon, Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, page 128:
glosses: Homosexual:
Tending to partner or mate with other individuals of the same sex.
raw_tags: of an animal
examples: text: Although the number of gay weddings has increased significantly, many gay and lesbian couples — like many straight couples — are not interested in getting married.
text: gay marriage
text: gay sex
glosses: Homosexual:
Between two or more persons perceived to be of the same sex or gender as each other.
raw_tags: of a romantic or sexual act or relationship
glosses: Homosexual:
Not heterosexual, not allosexual, or not cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
synonyms: queer
coordinate_terms: LGBTQ
examples: text: She professes an undying love for gay bars and gay movies, and even admits to having watched gay porn.
text: Gays meet each other in special-interest social groups—gay softball leagues, gay bike clubs, gay gymnasia, gay activist political organizations, the Gay Academic Union (an organization for gay teachers, scholars and students), gay university student clubs and so on.
ref: 1977, Charles Silverstein, Edmund White, The Joy of Gay Sex, New York: Crown Publishers, →ISBN, page 162:
text: He might well have suspected Cheek was a gay bar without seeing any of its patrons, simply because it was in a neighborhood where most of the bars were gay, and because you couldn't see in the windows.
ref: 2003, Lawrence Block, Small Town, page 269:
text: Turn left into chilled-out Old Compton St and try to guess which bars are gay. Even the straight bars in Soho are quite gay, so it's often a bit hard to tell.
ref: 2004, Martin Hughes, Sarah Johnstone, Tom Masters, London, page 208:
text: Again I was to masturbate into a cup and again the majority of the porn was gay.
ref: 2010, Jay Mohr, No Wonder My Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-Up Dad, page 252:
glosses: Homosexual:
Intended for gay people, especially gay men.
raw_tags: of an institution or group
examples: text: […] the pirates, who are obviously totally gay for each other […]
ref: 2014 December 6, Ej Dickson, “The 7 worst things about NBC's "Peter Pan Live!"”, in Salon.com:
text: Being gay for Brad, even a teensy bit, is at the very least being able to imagine the potential for queerness. In a sense, like the recent popular and critical furor over men who are gay-for-pay, being gay for Brad is what Jeffrey Escoffier defines as "situational homosexuality," or other forms of man-on-man behavior […] In other words, rather than worry over whether or not men who are queer for Brad can easily be labeled as straight or gay, […]
ref: 2014, Christopher Schaberg, Robert Bennett, Deconstructing Brad Pitt, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 211:
text: […] it’s now pretty popular among progressives to paint the US and Russian presidents as being gay for each other.
ref: 2017 May 2, German Lopez, “Stephen Colbert tried to insult Donald Trump. He made a homophobic comment instead.”, in Vox:
glosses: Homosexual:
Homosexually in love with someone.
raw_tags: with for
examples: text: Vanilla straight guy here. […] Is it socially acceptable for me to good-naturedly say, "I'm totally gay for musical theater"?
ref: 2014 December 31, Dan Savage, anonymous quotee, “Savage Love”, in The Stranger:
glosses: Homosexual:
Infatuated with something, aligning with homosexual stereotypes.
raw_tags: with for
glosses: Homosexual:
In accordance with stereotypes of homosexual people:
Being in accordance with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
raw_tags: of appearance or behavior
examples: text: This incident has become a source of much discussion, and the jury is still out on who is more gay: the guy who touched a dick or the guy who let a guy touch his dick.
ref: a. 2005, Jason Christopher Hartley, “October 23, 2004: This Is My Weapon, This Is My Gerber”, in Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq, HarperCollins, published 2005, →ISBN, page 25:
glosses: Homosexual:
In accordance with stereotypes of homosexual people:
Exhibiting appearance or behavior that accords with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
qualifier: especially a man
raw_tags: of a person
glosses: Effeminate or flamboyant in behavior.
examples: text: This game is gay; let’s play a different one.
text: Dolph: "Oh, man! You kissed a girl!"
Jimbo: "That is so gay!"
ref: 1996, Lisa's Date With Density, The Simpsons (cartoon television series). Upon discovering Nelson kissing Lisa
synonyms: ghey
glosses: Used to express dislike: lame, uncool, stupid, burdensome, contemptible, generally bad.
examples: text: The Gay Science
text: Never was there a more copious Fancy or greater reach of Wit, than what appears in Dr. Donne; nothing can be more gallant or gentile than the poems of Mr. Waller; nothing more gay or ſprightly than thoſe of Sir John Suckling; and nothing fuller of Variety and Learning than Mr. Cowley’s.
ref: c. 1692, William Walch, preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, in John Dryden, The Fourth Part of Miſcellany Poems, Jacob Tonson (publisher, 1716), page 338
text: Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
text: The Gay Divorcee.
ref: 1934, George Marion Jr. et al., (title)
text: ’Tis fine to be a pretty girl, or just a gay and witty girl,
And obviously to be both is rightly counted jam[.]
ref: 1939 July 19, The Bulletin, Sydney, page 14, column 1:
text: To think that only yesterday / I was cheerful, bright and gay
ref: 1972, Gilbert O'Sullivan, “Alone Again (Naturally)”, in Back to Front:
text: The excitement engendered by the decision to die perked him right up; he had not felt so gay for ages.
ref: 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 252:
glosses: Happy, joyful, and lively.
examples: text: I went a gay shack, / For it started to rain.
ref: 1873, Gwordie Greenup, Yance a Year, section 25:
text: We launched our canoe and were off at a gay clip for Hackettstown, where Mart had a married sister, and we were figuring on big eats.
ref: 1918, Hunter-trader-trapper, page 36:
text: My correspondent, who was riding in the first coach, comments that the small standard tender did not take kindly to this gay progress, and signified its disapproval from time to time by bombarding the train with lumps of coal!
ref: 1954 July, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 488:
text: "[…] there is no one more competent to make it fly at a gay pace than myself. A prince of the royal blood couldn't go at a faster pace than I have been going during these last three weeks! Ha, ha, ha!" In a moment he was kneeling before the safe.
ref: 2016, Laura Jean Libbey, Mischievous Maid Faynie, Library of Alexandria, →ISBN:
text: We shot along Sunset Boulevard at a gay pace, and squealed a turn down Vine Street with never a jitterbug pedestrian to make the driving interesting.
ref: 2019, Lawrence Lariar, He Died Laughing, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
glosses: Quick, fast.
examples: text: Pennsylvania Dutch include the plain folk and the gay folk.
text: A Beavie of fair women, richly gay / In gems and wanton dress.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: Don we now our gay apparel.
ref: 1881, J. P. McCaskey (editor), “Deck the Hall”, Franklin Square Song Collection, number 1, Harper & Brothers (New York), page 120
text: 1944, Ralph Blane, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Make the Yule-tide gay / From now on our troubles will be miles away
text: Rhos station had been cleaned up for the occasion, and its single platform was gay with flags.
ref: 1946 May and June, “Notes and News: Special Services for the Welsh National Eisteddfod”, in Railway Magazine, page 188:
glosses: Festive, bright, or colourful.
examples: text: As our heroes passed along the Strand, they were accosted by a hundred gay ladies, who asked them if they were good-natured. "Devil take me!" exclaimed Echo, "if I know which way my ship heads; but there is not a girl in the Strand that I would touch with my gloves on."
ref: 1806 (edition of 1815), John Davis, The Post-Captain, page 150
text: Prince Borghese was what is called a "gay, dissipated man"—that is to say, a powerful person leading a debauched and infamous life.
ref: 1856, Bayle St. John, The Subalpine kingdom: or, Experiences and studies in Savoy, Piedmont, and Genoa, volume 2, page 158:
text: […] it is possible for people to be diseased without being prostitutes or gay women; it is possible for people years ago to have spent a gay life and to have not got rid of their disease, or they may have become diseased by their husbands or lovers.
ref: 1879, Great Britain, Reports from committees, House of Commons, page 61:
text: Gay (common), loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl," a prostitute. "All gay," vide ALL GAY.
ref: 1889, Albert Barrère, Charles Godfrey Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinker's Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology, volume 1, page 399:
text: She imprudently forms the acquaintance of a "gay girl" living in the same street.
ref: 1898, John Mackinnon Robertson, G. Aston Singer, “The Social Evil Problem”, in The University magazine and free review: a monthly magazine, volume 9, page 308:
text: "As nothing could be more gay, i.e., debauched, than Zeno's court, so the ladies of gay disposition had great sway in it; particularly one, whose name was Fausta, who, though not extremely handsome, was by her wit and sprightliness very agreeable to the emperor.
ref: 1899, Henry Fielding, edited by Edmund Gosse, The works of Henry Fielding with an introduction, volume 11, page 290:
text: "It's an odd thing," he observed, "that men like Crutchley, with quantities of large white teeth, are practically always gay Lotharios."
ref: 1937, Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon, page 357:
text: Most of them liked the work because it was gay and because they were able to earn more than other girls who worked in offices or city stores. They apparently remain taxi-dancers for only about a year or two[.]
ref: 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 88:
glosses: Sexually promiscuous (of any gender), (sometimes particularly) engaged in prostitution.
examples: text: While the dog in concentrating at a given task, the tail is carried low and used for balance. In excitement it may rise level with the back. A “gay” tail is a fault.
ref: 1997, Michael DeVine, Border Collies:
text: By now Nora had left my side and was grappling with Maisie, trying to hold her still long enough to examine her bit. “You haven’t trained her well,” she muttered to Eli. “Oh, she’s got a gay tail!” Eli laughed. “A gay tail? What does that mean?” “It curls upward.” Nona let Maisie go. “Still, you never intended her to be a show dog,” she added. brushing off her skirt as she made for the house.
ref: 2000, David Leavitt, Martin Bauman; or, a Sure Thing:
glosses: Upright or curved over the back.
raw_tags: of a dog's tail
examples: text: As his reply was rather characteristic, I will give it : Many of them come a gay bit off.
ref: 1832, George Pearson, Evenings by Eden-side: Or, Essays and Poems, page 67:
text: Thou 's wantin' a sweetheart? Thou 's had a gay few! An' thou 's cheatit them, […]
ref: 1872, William Cullen Bryant, A Library of Poetry and Song, page 106:
text: A gay deal different to what I is noo.
ref: 1876 (edition; original 1871), Richardson, Talk 1
text: There were a gay bit of lace on it.
ref: 1881, Dixon, Craven Dales
text: T'country-side was rid on him for a gay while.
ref: 1881, Edwin Waugh, Tufts of Heather, I. 106:
text: "He has a gay bit of gumption in him, has Ray. It'll be no kitten play to catch hold on him, and they know that they do." The emphasis was accompanied by a lowered tone, and a sidelong motion of the head towards a doorway […]
ref: 1895, Sir Hall Caine, The Shadow of a Crime: A Cumbrian Romance, page 131:
text: "It's a gay bit off, though." "Trot on!" retorted Mr. Jorrocks anxiously, spurring Arterxerxes vehemently, an insult that the animal resented by a duck of his head and a hoist of his heels. Bump, bump, trot, trot, squash, splash, swosh, they went ...
ref: 1903, Robert Smith Surtees, Handley Cross, New York: D. Appleton, page 431:
glosses: Considerable, great, large in number, size, or degree. In this sense, also in the variant gey.
Synonyms: sense: homosexual
word: homosexual
Derived terms: sexual sense
anti-gay
be gay, do crime
cisgay
don't say gay
fake and gay
gaily
gay as pink ink
gay-ass
gay baby jail
gaybait
gay bar
gay basher
gay bash
gay-bash
gaybeseen
gaybine
gaybo
gay bob
gay bomb
gayborhood
gaybourhood
gay bowel syndrome
gay boy
gayboy
Gaybraham
gayby
gayby boom
gay cancer
gaycation
gaycel
Gaychester
gay chicken
gaycism
gaycist
gay curious
gaydar
gay-dar
gay death
gay disease
gay district
gaydom
gaydy
gay enclave
gayface
gayfag
gayfeather
gayfolk
gay for pay
gay for the stay
Gay Freedom Day
gay-friendliness
gay-friendly
gay friendly
gayful
gay ghetto
Gaygler
gay-hate
gayhood
gay icon
gayification
gayify
gay-in
gayish
gayism
gayization
gayless
gay liberation
gaylicious
gayling
Gaylor
gaylord
gayly
gay man
gay marriage
gay marry
gay-marry
gaymer
gaymo
gay neighborhood
gay neighbourhood
gayness
gayola
gay panic
gay panic defense
gayphobe
gayphobia
gayphobic
gay plague
gay pride
gay quarter
gay race communism
Gayreek
gay-related immune deficiency
gay-related immunodeficiency
gay rights
gay-shame
gay-shaming
gaysian
gaysome
gayspeak
gaysploitation
Gaystapo
GayStation
gay-straight alliance
gaystream
gaytard
gaytarded
gaytastic
gaytheist
gaytopia
gay tyke boy
gay up
gay village
Gayville
gaywad
gaywings
guncle
guppie
gusband
holigay
homogay
I'm gay
land rights for gay whales
lesbigay
lesbigaytrans
nongay
Norgay
outgay
postgay
prison gay
pro-gay
transgay
tray
ungay
yestergay
other senses
begay
gaiety
gay 90s
gay as a lark
gay as springtime
gay blade
gay dog
Gay Dutch
gayety
gay lady
gay old time
nosegay
with gay abandon
Related terms: jay