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gay

Pronunciation: /ɡeɪ/

The English word “gay” has 20 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Only possessing sexual and/or romantic attraction towards people one perceives to be the same sex or gender as oneself.
  2. Of a man, only romantically and/or sexually attracted to other men.
  3. Tending to partner or mate with other individuals of the same sex.
  4. Between two or more persons perceived to be of the same sex or gender as each other.
  5. Not heterosexual, or not cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
  6. Intended for gay people, especially gay men.
  7. Homosexually in love with someone.
  8. Infatuated with something, aligning with homosexual stereotypes.
  9. Being in accordance with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
  10. Exhibiting appearance or behavior that accords with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
  11. Flamboyant or effeminate in behavior.
  12. Used to express dislike: lame, uncool, stupid, burdensome, contemptible, generally bad.
  13. Happy, joyful, and lively.
  14. Quick, fast.
  15. Festive, bright, or colourful.
  16. Fair, beautiful, pretty, bonny; elegant, fine.
  17. Sexually promiscuous (of any gender), (sometimes particularly) engaged in prostitution.
  18. Upright or curved over the back.
  19. Considerable, great, large in number, size, or degree. In this sense, also in the variant gey.

noun

  1. A homosexual, especially a male homosexual.

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,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.