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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THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
* w/e meaning gay *
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.
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.
WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF 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. 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.