Definition of "gay"
gay1
adjective
comparative gayer, superlative gayest
(of a person) Possessing sexual and/or romantic attraction towards people one perceives to be the same sex or gender as oneself.
Quotations
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.
2003, Michael McAvennie, The World Wrestling Entertainment Yearbook
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).
2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133
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— […]
2007, Kevin P. Murphy, Jason Ruiz, David Serlin, Queer Futures, Radical History Review (Duke University Press), page 58
(strictly) Describing a homosexual man.
(of an animal, by extension) Tending to partner or mate with other individuals of the same sex.
Quotations
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.")
2010, Noėl Sturgeon, Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, page 128
(colloquial) Not heterosexual, or not cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
(of an institution or group) Intended for gay people, especially gay men.
Quotations
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.
1977, Charles Silverstein, Edmund White, The Joy of Gay Sex, New York: Crown Publishers, page 162
(slang, with for) Homosexually in love with someone.
Quotations
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, […]
2014, Christopher Schaberg, Robert Bennett, Deconstructing Brad Pitt, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, page 211
(slang, humorous, with for) Infatuated with something, aligning with homosexual stereotypes.
In accordance with stereotypes of homosexual people:
(loosely, of appearance or behavior) Being in accordance with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
(loosely, of a person, especially a man) Exhibiting appearance or behavior that accords with stereotypes of gay people, especially gay men.
Quotations
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.
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, page 25
(slang, derogatory) Effeminate or flamboyant in behavior.
(dated) Happy, joyful, and lively.
Quotations
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.
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
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.
1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
Quotations
" […] 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.
2016, Laura Jean Libbey, Mischievous Maid Faynie, Library of Alexandria
(obsolete) Sexually promiscuous (of any gender), (sometimes particularly) engaged in prostitution.
Quotations
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."
1806 (edition of 1815), John Davis, The Post-Captain, page 150
[…] 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.
1879, Great Britain, Reports from committees, House of Commons, page 61
Gay (common), loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl," a prostitute. "All gay," vide ALL GAY.
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
"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.
1899, Henry Fielding, edited by Edmund Gosse, The works of Henry Fielding with an introduction, volume 11, page 290
(of a dog's tail) Upright or curved over the back.
Quotations
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.
2000, David Leavitt, Martin Bauman; or, a Sure Thing
(Scotland, Northern England, possibly obsolete) Considerable, great, large in number, size, or degree. In this sense, also in the variant gey.
Quotations
"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 ...
1903, Robert Smith Surtees, Handley Cross, New York: D. Appleton, page 431
noun
plural gays
(now chiefly in the plural) A homosexual, especially a male homosexual.
Quotations
(obsolete) An ornament, a knick-knack.
Quotations
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).
1906, Cornish Notes & Queries: (first Series) (Cornish Telegraph, Peter Penn), page 132
verb
third-person singular simple present gays, present participle gaying, simple past and past participle gayed
adverb
(Scotland, Northern England) Considerably, very.
Quotations