Gay Defn & Meang - Merriam-Webster

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY (ADJ.)
• GAY
• THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’
• THE ORIG OF THE WORD ‘GAY’ S HOMOSEXUAL NTEXT
• HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

In the 1890s, the term “gey t” (a Sttish variant of gay) was ed to scribe a vagrant who offered sexual servic to women or a young traveler who was new to the road and the pany of an olr man. In 1951, gay appeared the Oxford English Dictnary for the first time as slang for homosexual, but was most likely ed this way “unrground” at least 30 years earlier. ” This le (ad-libbed by Grant) n be terpreted to mean that he was behavg a happy-go-lucky or lighthearted way but is accepted by many as the first e of gay to mean homosexual a mastream movie.

When gay is ed today to mean stupid or unsirable ( has only been ed this way sce the 1990s), rri wh a history of negative judgment and rigid ias about who or what is acceptable.

240]The associatn wh (male) homosexualy likely got a boost om the term gay t, ed as far back as 1893 Amerin English for "young hobo, " one who is new on the road, also one who sometim do jobs. Gay ts were severely and celly abed by "real" tramps and bums, who nsired them "an ferr orr of begs who begs of and otherwise preys upon the bum — as were a jackal followg up the kg of beasts" [Prof.

GAY (ADJ.)

In "Soclogy and Social Rearch" (1932-33) a paragraph on the "gay t" phenomenon not, "Homosexual practic are more mon than rare this group, " and gey t "homosexual boy" is attted Noel Erske's 1933 dictnary of "Unrworld & Prison Slang" (gey is a Sttish variant of gay) "Dictnary of Amerin Slang" reports that gay (adj. Perhaps the most monly touted one is that the morn e of gay  om a clippg of gayt, a slang term among hobos and erants meang a boy or young man who acpani an olr, more experienced tramp, wh the implitn of sexual favors beg exchanged for protectn and stctn. The term was often ed disparaggly and dat to at least 1893, when appears the November issue of Century magaze:The gay-ts are men who will work for “very good money, ” and are ually the Wt the tumn to take advantage of the high wag offered to laborers durg the harvt disparagg sense n be seen this catn om the 10 Augt 1895 issue of Harper’s Weekly:The hobo is an exceedgly proud fellow, and if you want to offend him, ll him a “gay t” or a “poke-outer.

”And om Jack London’s The Road, published 1907, but this passage is a reference to 1892:In a more faiar parlance, gay-ts are short-horns, chechaquos, new chums, or tenrfeet. A gay-t is a newer on The Road who is man-grown, or, at least, send possible explanatn is that the homosexual sense is an outgrowth of an earlier sense of gay meang addicted to pleasure, self-dulgent, or immoral. This sense dat to at least 1597 when appears John Payne’s Royall Exchange:Sum gay profsors (kepge secret mns) do love there wyu […] to avoy the early 20th century, the phrase “to go gay” was e, meang to adopt a hedonistic liftyle.

1795:Those bulli who live upon whor of fashn, affect the drs and airs of men of rank and fortune, and by stttg ocsnally by the si of a gay lady, add a nsequence to her and themselv, and duce the ignorant cully to thk that miss nfers her favours on gentlemen om Mary Robson’s 1799 The False Friend:“That’s not my bs, ” replied the bailiff. The lyrics do not explicly lk the word wh homosexualy, but they n be terpreted that way, pecially if sung by a man drag:It’s about a chap, perhaps you know, I’m told he is ‘Nobody’s be, ’But maybe you all knew that before, He’s a lively clerk a Dry-Goods Store. Augt Dolph is his name, From Skiddy-ma-dk they say he me, He’s a handsome man and he’s proud and poor, This gay young clerk the Dry-Goods ’s easy to dismiss the homosexual implitns the song as a 21st century reterpretatn of a mid-19th century song, but the ia of the effemate store clerk was a popular subject of parody the 1860s.

GAY

I love to loaf and lie about we nnot say wh certaty that Hays’s e of gay was tend to imply homosexualy, the parodic in of the effemate store clerk and the lk to Whman’s homosexualy is tantalizg. It is uncerta, however, if Ste’s e of gay  this se is a reference to lbianism or to the nventnal sense of gay meang happy:They, they learned ltle thgs that are thgs beg gay,.. And the 1938 movie Brgg Up Baby, the character played by Cary Grant, when asked why he is wearg women’s clothg repli:Bee I jt went gay all of a that gog gay had an tablished sense of beg hedonistic.

This le is probably a double entendre tend to slip past the term remaed slang wh the homosexual muny until the late 1960s, when the Stonewall rts and the rise of homosexual rights activism brought this sense of gay to wir ’s probably worth mentng that there is a false acronymic orig for gay floatg about, that stands for Good As You. It’s Pri Month and one of the most lourful words the English language – wh more makeovers than Madonna and more dramatic life stori than Liza Mnelli – is the word ‘gay’! Like every hero, ‘gay’ has an orig story, but even today, scholars are disagreement over the precise journey took to reach the level of fame (or famy) mands nowadays.

Sometime between the 11th and late 15th centuri, ‘gai’ crossed the English Channel and end up as ‘gay’, but kept s French meangs – ‘cheerful’, ‘happy’, ‘merry’, and ‘lively’.

THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’

By the 1970s, the term ‘gay man’ had bee firmly entrenched s current meang, referrg only to ‘homosexual men’, which was a far cry om jt a hundred years earlier, when meant ‘womaniser’ or ‘sexually unhibed man’. ’ This age is found most often among younger mal North Ameri/the UK and rearch shows that young men wh iends the LGBTQ+ muny e the word ‘gay’ a much ls pejorative way than those whout. In May, the Temecula Valley Unified School District’s board voted 3 to 2 to reject a new curriculum that clud discsns on the gay rights movement and mentned Harvey Milk, the first out gay man elected to public office California.

That same year, Pieters beme a natnal spokperson for AIDS awarens and gay polil activism after his historic terview wh televangelist Tammy Faye on her broadst, which fied the work's homophobic tennci. Chaddock's translatn of Krafft-Ebg's "Psychopathia Sexualis, " om German homosexual, homosexuale (by 1880, Gtav Jäger), om Greek homos "same" (see homo- (1)) + Lat-based sexual. Havelock Ellis, "Studi Psychology, " 1897]Sexual versn (1883, later simply versn, by 1895) was an earlier clil term for "homosexualy" English, said by Ellis to have origated Italian psychology wrg.

The term gay is equently ed as a synonym for homosexual; female homosexualy is often referred to as different tim and different cultur, homosexual behavur has been varly approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned. Homosexualy was not unmon ancient Greece and Rome, and the relatnships between adult and adolcent mal particular have bee a chief foc of Wtern classicists recent years. Others—om factns wh mastream Prottantism to anizatns of Reform rabbis—have advoted, on theologil as well as social grounds, the full acceptance of homosexuals and their relatnships.

THE ORIG OF THE WORD ‘GAY’ S HOMOSEXUAL NTEXT

Morn velopments Attus toward homosexualy are generally flux, partially as a rult of creased polil activism (see gay rights movement) and efforts by homosexuals to be seen not as aberrant personali but as differg om “normal” dividuals only their sexual orientatn. The nflictg views of homosexualy—as a variant but normal human sexual behavur on one hand, and as psychologilly viant behavur on the other—rema prent most societi the 21st century, but they have been largely rolved ( the profsnal sense) most veloped untri.

The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, for example, classified “ego-syntonic homosexualy” (the ndn of a person ntent wh his or her homosexualy) as a mental illns 1973. Selected theori of homosexualy Psychologists the 19th and 20th centuri, most of whom classified homosexualy as a form of mental illns, veloped a variety of theori on s orig. The stereotyp of male homosexuals as weak and effemate and lbians as mascule and aggrsive, which were wispread the Wt as recently as the 1950s and early ’60s, have largely been disrd.

The Ksey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult Amerin mal among Ksey’s subjects had engaged some homosexual activy and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclively homosexual for a perd of at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55.

HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

A range of more recent surveys, ncerng predomantly homosexual behavur as well as same-genr sexual ntact adulthood, have yield rults that are both higher and lower than those intified by Ksey. Instead of tegorizg people absolute terms as eher homosexual or heterosexual, Ksey observed a spectm of sexual activy, of which exclive orientatns of eher type make up the extrem. Although the topic of homosexualy was ltle discsed the public fom durg the early part of the 20th century, beme a polil issue many Wtern untri durg the late 20th century.

After the 1969 Stonewall rts, which New York Cy policemen raid a gay bar and met wh staed ristance, many homosexuals were embolned to intify themselv as gay men or lbians to iends, to relativ, and even to the public at large.