by Jordan Redman Staff Wrer Do you know what the word gay really means? The word gay dat back to the 12th century and om the Old French “gai,” meang “full of joy or mirth.” It may also relate to the Old High German “gahi,” meang impulsive.
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GAY (ADJ.)
GAY Meang: "full of joy, merry; light-hearted, reee;" also "wanton, lewd, lasciv" (late 12c. as a surname,… See orig and meang of gay. * word origins gay *
Gay (adj. As a surname, Philipp Gay), om Old French gai "joyful, happy; pleasant, agreeably charmg; forward, pert; light-lored" (12c. ; pare Old Spanish gayo, Portugue ga, Italian gajo, probably French loan-words).
)) word gay by the 1890s had an overall tge of promiscuy — a gay hoe was a brothel. The suggtn of immoraly the word n be traced back at least to the 1630s, if not to Chcer:But oure bed he was so sh and gay.
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
* word origins gay *
Whan that he wol han my bele slang meang "homosexual" (adj. ) begs to appear psychologil wrg the late 1940s, evintly picked up om gay slang and not always easily distguished om the olr sense:After discharge A.
He was not happy at the farm and went to a Wtern cy where he associated wh a homosexual crowd, beg "gay, " and wearg female cloth and makp. 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. "A Gay Cat, " said he, "is a loafg laborer, who works maybe a week, gets his wag and vagabonds about huntg for another 'pick and shovel' job.
Do you want to know where they got their moni (nickname) 'Gay Cat'? See, Kid, ts sneak about and scratch immediately after chummg wh you and then get gay (h). That's why we ll them 'Gay Cats'.
GAY
Gay Etymology: Found the English language; movg as a lguistic loan around the world, generalizg to intify the homosexual dividual by his cheerful and light behavr, referrg to the... * word origins gay *
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. McCook, "Tramps, " "The Public Treatment of Pperism, " 1893], but some acunts report certa olr tramps would domate a gay t and employ him as a sort of slave.
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.
) was ed by homosexuals, among themselv, this sense at least sce 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] not a male prostute g gay reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostut) London's notor Cleveland Street Sndal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] lls attentn to the ambiguo e of the word the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk the Dry Goods Store, " by U.
THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’
"Gay" (or "gai") is now wily ed French, Dutch, Danish, Japane, Swedish, and Catalan wh the same sense as the English. [John Boswell, "Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, " 1980]As a teen slang word meang "bad, ferr, unsirable, " whout reference to sexualy, om (n.
)"a (ually male) homosexual, " by 1971, om gay (adj. In Middle English meant "excellent person, noble lady, gallant knight, " also "somethg gay or bright; an ornament or badge" (c. Do you know what the word gay really means?
The word gay dat back to the 12th century and om the Old French “gai, ” meang “full of joy or mirth. For centuri, gay was ed monly speech and lerature to mean happy, reee, bright and showy, and did not take on any sexual meang until the 1600s.
ETYMOLOGY OF GAY
At that time the meang of gay as reee evolved to imply that a person was unrtraed by morals and prone to nce and promiscuy. A prostute might have been scribed as a “gay woman” and a womanizer as a “gay man. “Gay hoe” was monly ed to refer to a brothel and, later, “gaiety” was ed as a mon name for certa plac of entertament.
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. This latter e suggts that the younger man was a sexually submissive role and may be among the first tim that gay was ed implyg a homosexual relatnship. 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.