gay

name

1. An English surname transferred from the nickname, originally a nickname for a cheerful or lively person.
2. A unisex given name from English.
3. A unisex given name from English.

   “"Mr Gay Brawls. What a name." "It didn't use to mean what it means now. Plenty were named Gay. Even in Nevada. Was old Gay Pitch had a gas station in Winnemucca. Nobody thought nothin about it and he raised a railroad car of kids.”

4. A unisex given name from English.
5. A unisex given name from English.

   “- - - my father's father, Gaetano Talese (whose name I inherited after my birth in 1932, in the anglicized form "Gay"), was an atypically fearless traveler,”

adj

1. Homosexual:

   “Cliff is gay, but his twin brother is straight.”

   “He was not happy at the farm and went to a Western city where he associated with a homosexual crowd, being "gay," and wearing female clothes and makeup.”

   “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.”

   “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— […]”

2. Homosexual:

   “gay and lesbian people”

3. (broadly)Homosexual:
4. Homosexual:

   “Although the number of gay weddings has increased significantly, many gay and lesbian couples — like many straight couples — are not interested in getting married.”

   “gay marriage”

   “gay sex”

5. (colloquial)Homosexual:
6. Homosexual:

   “She professes an undying love for gay bars and gay movies, and even admits to having watched gay porn.”

   “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.”

   “He might well have suspected Cheek was a gay bar without seeing any of its patrons, simply because it was in a neighborhood where most of the bars were gay, and because you couldn't see in the windows.”

   “Turn left into chilled-out Old Compton St and try to guess which bars are gay. Even the straight bars in Soho are quite gay, so it's often a bit hard to tell.”

   “Again I was to masturbate into a cup and again the majority of the porn was gay.”

7. (slang)Homosexual:

   “[…] the pirates, who are obviously totally gay for each other […]”

   “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, […]”

   “[…] it’s now pretty popular among progressives to paint the US and Russian presidents as being gay for each other.”

8. (humorous, slang)Homosexual:

   “Vanilla straight guy here. […] Is it socially acceptable for me to good-naturedly say, "I'm totally gay for musical theater"?”

9. (broadly)Homosexual:
10. (broadly)Homosexual:

    “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.”

11. (derogatory, pejorative, slang)Flamboyant or effeminate in behavior.
12. (derogatory, pejorative, slang)Used to express dislike: lame, uncool, stupid, burdensome, contemptible, generally bad.

    “This game is gay; let’s play a different one.”

    “Dolph: "Oh, man! You kissed a girl!" Jimbo: "That is so gay!"”

13. (dated)Happy, joyful, and lively.

    “The Gay Science”

    “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.”

    “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.”

    “The Gay Divorcee.”

    “’Tis fine to be a pretty girl, or just a gay and witty girl, And obviously to be both is rightly counted jam[.]”

14. (dated)Quick, fast.

    “I went a gay shack, / For it started to rain.”

    “We launched our canoe and were off at a gay clip for Hackettstown, where Mart had a married sister, and we were figuring on big eats.”

    “My correspondent, who was riding in the first coach, comments that the small standard tender did not take kindly to this gay progress, and signified its disapproval from time to time by bombarding the train with lumps of coal!”

    “"[…] 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.”

    “We shot along Sunset Boulevard at a gay pace, and squealed a turn down Vine Street with never a jitterbug pedestrian to make the driving interesting.”

15. (dated)Festive, bright, or colourful.

    “Pennsylvania Dutch include the plain folk and the gay folk.”

    “A Beavie of fair women, richly gay / In gems and wanton dress.”

    “Don we now our gay apparel.”

    “1944, Ralph Blane, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Make the Yule-tide gay / From now on our troubles will be miles away”

    “Rhos station had been cleaned up for the occasion, and its single platform was gay with flags.”

16. (obsolete)Fair, beautiful, pretty, bonny; elegant, fine.

    “Thy purse and eke thy gay guilt kniues, thy pincase gallant to the eie: No better wore the Burgesse wiues, and yet thou wouldst not loue me.”

    “THERE was a king of the north countree, […] And he had daughters one, two, three. […] To the eldest he gave a beaver hat, And the youngest she thought much of that. To the youngest he gave a gay gold chain, And the eldest she thought much of the same.”

    “'I knowe wher is a gay castle, Is builded of lyme and stone; Within their is a gay ladie, Her lord is riden and gone.'”

17. (obsolete)Sexually promiscuous (of any gender), (sometimes particularly) engaged in prostitution.

    “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."”

    “Prince Borghese was what is called a "gay, dissipated man"—that is to say, a powerful person leading a debauched and infamous life.”

    “[…] 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.”

    “Gay (common), loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl," a prostitute. "All gay," vide ALL GAY.”

    “She imprudently forms the acquaintance of a "gay girl" living in the same street.”

18. Upright or curved over the back.

    “While the dog in concentrating at a given task, the tail is carried low and used for balance. In excitement it may rise level with the back. A “gay” tail is a fault.”

    “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.”

19. (Northern-England, Scotland, obsolete, possibly)Considerable, great, large in number, size, or degree. In this sense, also in the variant gey.

    “As his reply was rather characteristic, I will give it : Many of them come a gay bit off.”

    “Thou 's wantin' a sweetheart? Thou 's had a gay few! An' thou 's cheatit them, […]”

    “A gay deal different to what I is noo.”

    “There were a gay bit of lace on it.”

    “T'country-side was rid on him for a gay while.”

noun

1. (in-plural)A homosexual, especially a male homosexual.

   “[headline] N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?”

   “"Same-sex dancing, as we call it, is quite legal," a gay named Lew Todd, who was one of the spokesmen, spoke up.”

   “Yet that does not mean that the issues, concerns and attitudes of gays and lesbians in the workplace are not important.”

   “Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.”

   “On June 28, 1970, young gays in the city held a “Gay-in” in Golden Gate Park, and Gay Sunshine ran a photo of some of the participants in their inaugural issue […]”

2. (derogatory, informal, ironic, often)Gayness: the quality of being gay.

   “Anti-gay persecution holds that you can pray the gay out of a person, or scare it out of them, or cajole it out of them.”

3. (dialectal, obsolete)Something which is bright or colorful, such as a picture or a flower.

   “At a stall soon Mary bote / A hume-book full ov gays.”

   “I had no books to read, but plenty of gays to look at.”

   “‘Can't you mow the aftermath in the churchyard before Sunday?’ ‘Not time enough, sir, but I'll cut off they gays.’”

   “There's a good child; look at the gays, and keep quiet.”

4. (obsolete)An ornament, a knick-knack.

   “Look upon precepts in emblems, as they do to upon gays and pictures.”

   “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).”

5. The letter —, which stands for the sound /ɡ/, in Pitman shorthand.

verb

1. (dated, transitive, uncommon)To make happy or cheerful.

   “SAYING GOOD-BYE (song) WE are always saying / "Good-bye, good-bye! / In work, in playing, / In gloom, in gaying […]”

   “Gaying Things Up For Christmas. JESSIE TODD, Laboratory School, University of Chicago. EVERY schoolroom in America is gayed up for Christmas.”

2. (transitive, uncommon)To cause (something, e.g. AIDS) to be associated with homosexual people.

adv

1. (Northern-England, Scotland)Considerably, very.

   “And, tho' his guts ware lank and toom, / They're twice as big's this gay big room.”

   “Now, to end my story, if o' t' village beauties wad git t' religion that good auld parson Jenkins recommends, it wad gay sharply mak' t' dirty women clean, […]”

   “[…] an' be t' Silver Cwove, an' than throo t' Pillar, an' a gay rough bit o' grund it is!”

   “When a fellah com' in 'at was gay free wid spendin.”

   “She'll mak naw moor mischeef neets—she's gay quiet now!”