queer
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
adv
Morphological type: simple
Topics: human-sciences
sciences
social-science
social-sciences
Etymology: Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) or the related German quer (“diagonal”), from Old Saxon thwerh, from Proto-West Germanic *þwerh, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to turn, twist, wind”); compare Latin torqueō, and see more at thwart. The OED argues against this due to the semantic differences and the date at which the word appears in Scots.
Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s; see usage notes for more.
Inflected forms:
form: queerer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: queerest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: qwer
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: queers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: qwer
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: queers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: queering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: queered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: queered
pos: verb
tags: past
form: qwer
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: more queer
pos: adv
tags: comparative
form: most queer
pos: adv
tags: superlative
form: qwer
pos: adv
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Homosexual.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
derogatory
sometimes
examples: “Such a Momma’s boy.” The old men had started up again—or perhaps they had never stopped. “No matter who he schtupped. Even Marilyn. I wouldn’t be surprised he was queer.” / “Strange, yes. Weird, yes. Queer, I don’t think.”
This is a one-shot thing we got goin’ on here. […] You know I ain’t queer.
gloss: Non-heterosexual or non-cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
derogatory
sometimes
gloss: Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc.
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: the queer community
If gender is no longer to be understood as consolidated through normative sexuality, then is there a crisis of gender that is specific to queer contexts?
Historically, this has meant that queer sexuality—defined here not literally or only as same-gender desire but as "the sex of others," meaning any sexuality outside the bounds of the reproductive, white, and genitally oriented—is often positioned against and even as toxic to "nature".
And yet queer and transgender people are finding a place in a lifestyle that, at least online, often occupies the same digital space as content from conservative creators, said Devin Proctor, an assistant professor of anthropology at Elon University in North Carolina who studies how we construct identities online.
gloss: Strange, odd, or different; whimsical.
pos: adj
tags: dated
examples: An old long-faced, long-bodied servant, gave a queer look
“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”
One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes–as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white–the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens.
It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled "His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America." The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost "His Excellency" less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!
Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.
“’Tis a queer book - here, leave me git on my spectacles - ” The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses (...)
1927, J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds” in Possible Worlds and Other Papers, London: Chatto & Windus,
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
A queer look came over John Arable's face. He seemed almost ready to cry himself.
Though it may seem very queer,
we've got no jobs to give you here,
so we are sending you to Vietnam.
When the lights popped out, when the smoke began to clear / It was positively queer
gloss: Slightly unwell.
pos: adj
tags: UK
dated
informal
examples: I felt queer after eating those shrimp.
Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. … When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.
"Well, I'm—I'm jiggered," said Peter, and his voice also sounded queer.
VLADIMIR: Hope deferred maketh the something sick, who said that? / ESTRAGON: Why don't you help me? / VLADIMIR: Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. Then I go all queer.
gloss: Drunk.
pos: adj
tags: UK
dated
slang
gloss: A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
derogatory
sometimes
examples: Now that the first flush of this catastrophe and grief is passed, I write to tell you that it is a judgement on the whole lot of you. Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like [the Earl of] Rosebery & certainly Christian hypocrite [William Ewart] Gladstone [...]
[...] fourteen young men were invited [...] with the premise that they would have the opportunity of meeting some of the prominent 'queers,' [...] and the further attraction that some 'chickens' as the new recruits in the vice are called, would be available.
It is the queers themselves whose answers to "What to do about it [homosexuality]" are most important. They, rather than the normals, cops, parents, or doctors are the persons most vitally concerned.
Any blow against the queer is really a blow struck against a part of ourselves which we cannot accept or understand. I think in every case it would be correct to say that someone with a strong hostility toward homosexuals has a latent homosexual drive equal to the hostility.
If you asked the man in the modern street for his opinion of homosexuality, he would probably reply, 'I've nothing against queers myself but I wouldn't like one of them to marry my father.'
Queers are under siege.
Queers are being attacked on all front and I'm afraid it's ok with us.
In 1969, Queers were attacked. It wasn't ok. Queers fought back, took the streets. SHOUTED.
He also voiced his dislike for gays, stating: 'I don't believe in queers. I don't like queers. I don't hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong and an abomination against God.'
gloss: A person of any non-heterosexual sexuality or sexual identity.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
derogatory
sometimes
gloss: A person of any genderqueer identity.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
derogatory
sometimes
examples: Gentrification often starts with the artists, revolutionaries, freaks, transfolks, and queers (what I would call my people) moving into poor neighborhoods inhabited by people of color.
gloss: Counterfeit money.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
informal
with-definite-article
examples: You're shoving the queer.
gloss: To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.
pos: verb
tags: dated
transitive
examples: I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it.
gloss: To puzzle.
pos: verb
tags: UK
dated
dialectal
examples: "But lor-a-mussy, Jacob, how could a woman get away from here with all her boxes in the middle of the night?"
"That's what queered me," and Spink slowly shook his head, "and queered a good many; for of course it got newsed about […]"
"Where do you come from?" Stanley queered.
gloss: To ridicule; to banter; to rally.
pos: verb
tags: dated
slang
gloss: To spoil the effect or success of, as by ridicule; to throw a wet blanket on; to spoil.
pos: verb
tags: dated
slang
examples: "Food is what queered the party. We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two o'clock. Alec didn't give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little bastard snitched."
Well, then I got buried—shell dropped, and the dug-out caved in—and that queered me. They sent me home.
You'll queer yourself on Broadway—you'll never get another job.
gloss: To reevaluate or reinterpret (a work) with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.
pos: verb
examples: If I go, for instance, to the history of the church in Latin America, and decide to queer the history of the Jesuitic Missions, I may find that, in many ways, the missions were more sexual than Christian.
Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume.
We might say that there has been a ‘queering’ of urban studies insofar as the metropolitan lives, subcultures and social movements of gays and lesbians are now seen as valid objects of study.
gloss: To make a work more appealing or attractive to LGBT people, such as by not having strict genders for playable characters.
pos: verb
tags: neologism
slang
gloss: Queerly.
pos: adv
tags: not-comparable
usually
gloss: Very, extremely.
pos: adv
tags: Ireland
not-comparable
usually
examples: Twas a queer bachram in the pub that night!
Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes!”
Page 6: Tony: Yeah, he's a queer smily fecker, ain't he?
Page 14: Tony: I'll tell yeh one thing Conway he's trainin' queer hard for it!
Derived words: anarcha-queer
antiqueer
as queer as Dick's hatband
catch the queer
cisqueer
cripqueer
cyberqueer
Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Communism
genderqueer
heteroqueer
neuroqueer
nonqueer
postqueer
queerable
queer anarchism
queer anarchist
queerantagonism
queerantine
queer as a clockwork orange
queer as a coot
queer as a nine bob note
queer as a three dollar bill
queer as a three-dollar bill
queer as Dick's hatband
queerbait
queer-baiting
queerbaiting
queer baiting
queer-bash
queer basher
queer bashing
queer-bashing
queercore
queercrip
queerdar
queerdom
queer duck
queer fish
queerhood
queerification
queer in the head
queerious
queerish
queerism
queerization
queerize
queer ken
queer liberation
queerlord
queerly
queermisia
queermisic
queermo
queerness
queernormative
queernormativity
queerosexual
queer parade
queerphobia
queerphobic
queerplatonic
queersome
queerspawn
queerspeak
queersploitation
queer studies
queer theory
QueerTok
queer up
queery
Quidditch
superqueero
tenderqueer
there's nowt so queer as folk
undocuqueer
quare
Queer Street
baby queer
gear queer
queerdo
shove the queer
smear the queer
queer someone's pitch
Translations:
lang: Arabic
word: كْوِير
roman: kwīr
lang: Bulgarian
word: извратен
roman: izvraten
lang: Catalan
word: marica
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 酷儿
roman: kù'ér
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 酷兒 /酷儿
roman: kù'ér
lang: Danish
word: queer
lang: Esperanto
word: kvira
lang: Esperanto
word: GLATa
lang: Finnish
word: sateenkaari-
lang: Finnish
word: pervo
lang: French
word: queer
lang: Georgian
word: ქვიარი
roman: kviari
lang: German
word: queer
lang: Hebrew
word: קְוִּויר
roman: kuír
lang: Hebrew
word: קווירית
lang: Hungarian
word: queer
lang: Icelandic
word: hinsegin
lang: Indonesian
word: belok
lang: Irish
word: aiteach
lang: Japanese
word: クィア
roman: kuia
lang: Latvian
word: kvīrs
lang: Macedonian
word: настран
roman: nastran
lang: Malay
word: kuira
lang: Norwegian
word: skeiv
lang: Polish
word: queerowy
lang: Portuguese
word: queer
lang: Réunion Creole French
word: kwir
lang: Northern Sami
word: bonju
lang: Spanish
word: queer
lang: Spanish
word: torcido
lang: Spanish
word: cuir
lang: Spanish
word: non heterosexual
lang: Swedish
word: queer
lang: Tamil
word: குயர்
roman: kuyar
lang: Tamil
word: பால்புது
roman: pālputu
lang: Tamil
word: பால்புதுமை
roman: pālputumai
lang: Turkish
word: kuir
lang: Turkish
word: queer
lang: Ukrainian
word: кві́рний
roman: kvírnyj