gay
Part of speech: adj
noun
adv
Morphological type: simple
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 *ǵʰeh₁- (“to leave”), 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 boy ("young male prostitute") - and 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 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.
Inflected forms:
form: gayer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: gayest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: gays
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
examples: Cliff is gay, but his twin brother is straight.
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.
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.
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).
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— […]
Her adoptive mother fainted when Gail told her she was gay.
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
examples: gay and lesbian people
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: 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.")
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
examples: Although the number of gay weddings has increased significantly, many gay and lesbian couples — like many straight couples — are not interested in getting married.
gay marriage
gay sex
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
examples: She professes an undying love for gay bars and gay movies, and even admits to having watched gay porn.
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.
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.
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.
Again I was to masturbate into a cup and again the majority of the porn was gay.
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: slang
examples: […] the pirates, who are obviously totally gay for each other […]
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, […]
[…] it’s now pretty popular among progressives to paint the US and Russian presidents as being gay for each other.
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: humorous
slang
examples: Vanilla straight guy here. […] Is it socially acceptable for me to good-naturedly say, "I'm totally gay for musical theater"?
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: broadly
gloss: Homosexual:
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: 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.
gloss: Flamboyant or effeminate in behavior.
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
pejorative
slang
gloss: Used to express dislike: lame, uncool, stupid, burdensome, contemptible, generally bad.
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
pejorative
slang
examples: This game is gay; let’s play a different one.
Dolph: "Oh, man! You kissed a girl!"
Jimbo: "That is so gay!"
gloss: Happy, joyful, and lively.
pos: adj
tags: dated
examples: The Gay Science
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.
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.
The Gay Divorcee.
’Tis fine to be a pretty girl, or just a gay and witty girl,
And obviously to be both is rightly counted jam[.]
To think that only yesterday / I was cheerful, bright and gay
The excitement engendered by the decision to die perked him right up; he had not felt so gay for ages.
gloss: Quick, fast.
pos: adj
tags: dated
examples: I went a gay shack, / For it started to rain.
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.
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!
"[…] 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.
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.
gloss: Festive, bright, or colourful.
pos: adj
tags: dated
examples: Pennsylvania Dutch include the plain folk and the gay folk.
A Beavie of fair women, richly gay / In gems and wanton dress.
Don we now our gay apparel.
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
Rhos station had been cleaned up for the occasion, and its single platform was gay with flags.
gloss: Fair, beautiful, pretty, bonny; elegant, fine.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: Thy purse and eke thy gay guilt kniues,
thy pincase gallant to the eie:
No better wore the Burgesse wiues,
and yet thou wouldst not loue me.
THERE was a king of the north countree,
[…]
And he had daughters one, two, three.
[…]
To the eldest he gave a beaver hat,
And the youngest she thought much of that.
To the youngest he gave a gay gold chain,
And the eldest she thought much of the same.
'I knowe wher is a gay castle,
Is builded of lyme and stone;
Within their is a gay ladie,
Her lord is riden and gone.'
gloss: Sexually promiscuous (of any gender), (sometimes particularly) engaged in prostitution.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: 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."
Prince Borghese was what is called a "gay, dissipated man"—that is to say, a powerful person leading a debauched and infamous life.
[…] 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.
Gay (common), loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl," a prostitute. "All gay," vide ALL GAY.
She imprudently forms the acquaintance of a "gay girl" living in the same street.
"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.
"It's an odd thing," he observed, "that men like Crutchley, with quantities of large white teeth, are practically always gay Lotharios."
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[.]
gloss: Upright or curved over the back.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: Considerable, great, large in number, size, or degree. In this sense, also in the variant gey.
pos: adj
tags: Northern-England
Scotland
obsolete
possibly
examples: As his reply was rather characteristic, I will give it : Many of them come a gay bit off.
Thou 's wantin' a sweetheart? Thou 's had a gay few! An' thou 's cheatit them, […]
A gay deal different to what I is noo.
There were a gay bit of lace on it.
T'country-side was rid on him for a gay while.
"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 […]
"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 ...
gloss: A homosexual, especially a male homosexual.
pos: noun
tags: in-plural
examples: [headline] N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?
"Same-sex dancing, as we call it, is quite legal," a gay named Lew Todd, who was one of the spokesmen, spoke up.
Yet that does not mean that the issues, concerns and attitudes of gays and lesbians in the workplace are not important.
Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.
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 […]
gloss: Gayness: the quality of being gay.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
informal
ironic
often
examples: 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.
gloss: Something which is bright or colorful, such as a picture or a flower.
pos: noun
tags: dialectal
obsolete
examples: At a stall soon Mary bote / A hume-book full ov gays.
I had no books to read, but plenty of gays to look at.
‘Can't you mow the aftermath in the churchyard before Sunday?’ ‘Not time enough, sir, but I'll cut off they gays.’
There's a good child; look at the gays, and keep quiet.
gloss: An ornament, a knick-knack.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Look upon precepts in emblems, as they do to upon gays and pictures.
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).
gloss: Considerably, very.
pos: adv
tags: Northern-England
Scotland
examples: And, tho' his guts ware lank and toom, / They're twice as big's this gay big room.
Now, to end my story, if o' t' village beauties wad git t' religion that good auld parson Jenkins recommends, it wad gay sharply mak' t' dirty women clean, […]
[…] an' be t' Silver Cwove, an' than throo t' Pillar, an' a gay rough bit o' grund it is!
When a fellah com' in 'at was gay free wid spendin.
She'll mak naw moor mischeef neets—she's gay quiet now!
Synonyms: homosexual
homosexual person and Thesaurus:male homosexual
Related words: jay
Derived words: 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
pray away the gay
pray the gay away
trans the gay away
Translations:
lang: Afrikaans
word: gay
lang: Afrikaans
word: moffie
lang: Afrikaans
word: homoseksueel
lang: American Sign Language
word: G@Chin-PalmBack
lang: Amharic
word: ጌይ
roman: gey
lang: Amharic
word: ደማቅ
roman: dämaḳ
lang: Arabic
word: مِثْلِيّ
roman: miṯliyy
lang: Arabic
word: مِثْلِيَّة
roman: miṯliyya
lang: Arabic
word: جيى
lang: Arabic
word: جاى
roman: gēy
lang: Arabic
word: ليزبيان
roman: lézbiyan
lang: Assamese
word: সমকামী
roman: xomkami
lang: Assamese
word: গে’
roman: gë
lang: Assamese
word: সমলৈংগিক
roman: xomoloiṅgik
lang: Belarusian
word: гамасексуа́льны
roman: hamasjeksuálʹny
lang: Bengali
word: সমকামী
roman: sômôkamī
lang: Bulgarian
word: хомосексуа́лен
roman: homoseksuálen
lang: Bulgarian
word: обратен
roman: obraten
lang: Catalan
word: gai
lang: Chinese Cantonese
word: 同性戀 /同性恋
lang: Chinese Cantonese
word: 基
roman: gei¹
lang: Chinese
word: 同性戀 /同性恋
roman: tông-sìng-luân
lang: Chinese
word: 半陰 /半阴
lang: Chinese
word: 半陰陽 /半阴阳
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 同性戀的 /同性恋的
roman: tóngxìngliàn de
lang: Czech
word: homosexuální
lang: Danish
word: bøsse
lang: Danish
word: lesbisk
lang: Danish
word: homoseksuel
lang: Dutch
word: homoseksueel
lang: Dutch
word: homofiel
lang: Esperanto
word: geja
lang: Esperanto
word: samseksama
lang: Esperanto
word: samseksema
lang: Estonian
word: gei
lang: Estonian
word: homoseksuaalne
lang: Estonian
word: homoseksuaal
lang: Finnish
word: homo-
lang: Finnish
word: homoseksuaalinen
lang: Finnish
word: homo
lang: French
word: gay
lang: French
word: homo
lang: French
word: gai
lang: Georgian
word: გეი
roman: gei
lang: Georgian
word: ჰომოსექსუალი
roman: homoseksuali
lang: Georgian
word: მამათმავალი
roman: mamatmavali
lang: German
word: homosexuell
lang: German
word: schwul
lang: German
word: gay
lang: German
word: lesbisch
lang: Greek
word: γκέι
roman: gkéi
lang: Greek
word: ομοφυλόφιλος
roman: omofylófilos
lang: Greek
word: ομοφυλόφιλη
roman: omofylófili
lang: Greek
word: λεσβία
roman: lesvía
lang: Greek
word: πούστης
roman: poústis
lang: Greek
word: αδερφή
roman: aderfí
lang: Ancient Greek
word: κίναιδος
roman: kínaidos
lang: Ancient Greek
word: λάσταυρος
roman: lástauros
lang: Ancient Greek
word: βάταλος
roman: bátalos
lang: Hebrew
word: עַלִּיז
roman: 'alíz
lang: Hebrew
word: גֵּאֶה
roman: ge'é
lang: Hindi
word: समलैंगिक
roman: samlaiṅgik
lang: Hungarian
word: meleg
lang: Ido
word: geya
lang: Ido
word: geyala
lang: Indonesian
word: gay
lang: Interlingua
word: gay
lang: Irish
word: aerach
lang: Irish
word: bán
lang: Italian
word: gay
lang: Italian
word: omosessuale
lang: Japanese
word: 同性愛
roman: dōseiai
lang: Japanese
word: ゲイ
roman: gei
lang: Japanese
word: オカマ
roman: okama
lang: Korean
word: 게이
roman: gei
lang: Korean
word: 동성애자
roman: dongseong'aeja
lang: Latin
word: cinaedus
lang: Latvian
word: gejs
lang: Lithuanian
word: gėjus
lang: Macedonian
word: геј
roman: gej
lang: Macedonian
word: хо́мосексуален
roman: hómoseksualen
lang: Macedonian
word: педерски
roman: pederski
lang: Malay
word: homoseksual
lang: Maltese
word: gay
lang: Maltese
word: omosesswali
lang: Maltese
word: pufta
lang: Maltese
word: linfa
lang: Maltese
word: sissi
lang: Maltese
word: mxaqleb
lang: Navajo
word: nádleeh
lang: Norwegian
word: homoseksuell
lang: Norwegian
word: homo
lang: Norwegian
word: homse
lang: Norwegian
word: soper
lang: Norwegian
word: bøg
lang: Dari
word: همجنسگرا
roman: hamjins-garā
lang: Dari
word: گی
roman: gē
lang: Iranian Persian
word: همجنسگرا
roman: hamjens-gerâ
lang: Iranian Persian
word: گی
roman: gey
lang: Polish
word: homoseksualny
lang: Portuguese
word: gay
lang: Portuguese
word: guei
lang: Romanian
word: gay
lang: Russian
word: гей
roman: gej
lang: Russian
word: гомосексуа́л
roman: gomoseksuál
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: co-sheòrsach
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: gèidh
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: co-ghnèitheach
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: хомосексуалан
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: homoseksualan
lang: Slovak
word: homosexuálny
lang: Lower Sorbian
word: šwulny
lang: Lower Sorbian
word: homoseksualny
lang: Lower Sorbian
word: lesbiski
lang: Spanish
word: gay
lang: Spanish
word: homosexual
lang: Swedish
word: homosexuell
lang: Swedish
word: homo
lang: Swedish
word: gay
lang: Swedish
word: bög
lang: Tagalog
word: bakla
lang: Tagalog
word: bading
lang: Tagalog
word: tibo
lang: Tagalog
word: tomboy
lang: Turkish
word: homo
lang: Turkish
word: homoseksüel
lang: Turkish
word: ibne
lang: Turkish
word: eşcinsel
lang: Ukrainian
word: ґей
roman: gej
lang: Ukrainian
word: гомосексуа́л
roman: homoseksuál
lang: Vietnamese
word: đồng tính
lang: Vietnamese
word: gay
lang: Welsh
word: hoyw
lang: Dutch
word: verwijfd
lang: Finnish
word: naismainen
lang: Georgian
word: ქალური
roman: kaluri
lang: Hungarian
word: nőies
lang: Italian
word: effemminato
lang: Macedonian
word: женствен
roman: ženstven
lang: Norwegian
word: femi
lang: Polish
word: zniewieściały
lang: Polish
word: zmanierowany
lang: Portuguese
word: efeminado
lang: Russian
word: жема́нный
roman: žemánnyj
lang: Slovak
word: zženštilý
lang: Spanish
word: amujerado
lang: Spanish
word: afeminado
lang: Spanish
word: amanerado
lang: Swedish
word: bögig
lang: Swedish
word: fjollig