Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex.
- adj. Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.
- adj. Bright or lively, especially in color: a gay, sunny room.
- adj. Given to social pleasures.
- adj. Dissolute; licentious.
- n. A person whose sexual orientation is to persons of the same sex.
- n. A man whose sexual orientation is to men: an alliance of gays and lesbians.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Disposed to or excited with merriment or delight; demonstratively cheerful; merry; jovial; sportive; frolicsome.
- Such as to excite or indicate mirth or pleasure; hence, cheering; enlivening.
- Bright or lively, especially in color; gaudy; showy: as, a gay dress; a gay flower.
- Richly or showily dressed; adorned with fine clothing; highly ornamented.
- Given to pleasure; lively; in a bad sense, given to vicious pleasure; loose; dissipated.
- Quick; fast. [Prov. Eng.]
- Pretty long; considerable: as, a gay while. Compare gay, adv. [Prov. Eng. and Scotch.]
- Bright, brilliant, dashing.
- n. Anything showily fine or ornamental; a gaud.
- n. A gay lady; a beautiful lady.
- n. A print or picture.
- n. The noon or morning, as the brighter part of the day.
- Pretty; moderately: as, gay gude.
- n. A small rut in a path. [Prov. Eng.]
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Sexually promiscuous (of either gender).
- adj. Homosexual:
- adj. A pejorative:
- adj. of a dog's tail Upright or curved over the back.
- n. a homosexual, especially a male homosexual; see also lesbian.
- n. obsolete An ornament.
- n. The name of the letter ⟨—⟩, which stands for the sound IPA: /ɡ/, in Pitman shorthand.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Excited with merriment; manifesting sportiveness or delight; inspiring delight; livery; merry.
- adj. Brilliant in colors; splendid; fine; richly dressed.
- adj. colloq. Loose; dissipated; lewd.
- n. obsolete An ornament.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. brightly colored and showy
- adj. full of or showing high-spirited merriment
- adj. homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
- adj. bright and pleasant; promoting a feeling of cheer
- n. someone who practices homosexuality; having a sexual attraction to persons of the same sex
- adj. given to social pleasures often including dissipation
- adj. offering fun and gaiety
Etymologies
- From Middle English gay, from Old French gai ("joyful, laughing, merry"), probably a borrowing of Old Provençal gai ("impetuous, lively"), from Gothic *𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌴𐌹𐍃 (gaheis, “impetuous”), merging with earlier Old French jai ("merry"; see jay), from Old Frankish *gāhi; both from Proto-Germanic *ganhuz, *ganhwaz (“sudden”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰengʰ- (“to stride, step”), from *ǵʰēy- (“to go”). Cognate with Dutch gauw ("fast, quickly"), Westphalian Low German gau, gai ("fast, quick"), German jäh ("abrupt, sudden"). For more information, see the entries gang and go. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English gai, lighthearted, brightly colored, from Old French, possibly of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“If a gay man and a gay* woman marry each other it happens would you think it is equally dissembling if they referred to it as a different-sex marriage instead of a straight marriage or a heterosexual marriage?”
The Volokh Conspiracy » “Gay Marriage” or “Same-Sex Marriage”?
“What a waste Mark is gay...reminds me of a song with dis line ~~all d handsome men are gay~~...haha...”
“* Dwight is "researching" gays by looking at gay porn because they found out Oscar was gay*”
“- Little gay· chapero - gay bitch· Bastardo - Bastard·”
“-- And you, my young friend, Master Augustine, shall be looked after as well as if you came with a gay brow and a light cheek, such as best becomes the _gay science_. ”
“As a matter of fact, the "New York Times" reported, "While much of his later life was occupied by scholarly questions of the Bible and homosexuality, he came to abhor the label 'gay minister.”
The Huffington Post: Irene Monroe: Rev. Peter Gomes: The Accidental Gay Advocate
“Sen. Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, who was elected in the fall, told a public forum that he won't vote for a bill that uses the term "gay marriage," a spokesman said.”
The Wall Street Journal: Gay Marriage Effort Taps GOP Strategists
“Because it turns out the guy who owns the car, expensive car, by the way, is the owner of a nightclub, and he had on his license plate the term gay, bi-gay, which is, by the way, the name of his club.”
“As a person who is in the middle of college , I still hear the term gay thrown around quite a bit.”
“While much of his later life was occupied by scholarly questions of the Bible and homosexuality, he came to abhor the label "gay minister," and pursued a much wider range of studies, on early American religions, Elizabethan Puritanism, church music and the African-American experience.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gay’.
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• Wordies talk about themselves
Sometimes users are also persons.
llogos, peter stickles, old age, 39, insomnia, frown of approval, chuck norris, ovular, gay, fencing, rabbits, seven empty cups ... and 137 more...
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Headlines & Newsmakers
frugality, environment, extinction, bible, killer, jazz, cloning, dead, god, moon, global warming, bailout and 340 more...
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Common English Words That Are Also Fi...
art, bob, bill, grace, hope, john, heather, pat, amber, jack, dale, glen and 170 more...
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Palabras de 3 letras en Español.
¡La única lista que también incluye flexiónes verbales y pluralizaciones! Ayúdame a encontrarlas todas.
(Por ser una lista para Scrabble, los dígrafos ll, rr, y ch valen como una sola ...aba, aca, aga, ahe, ahi, aho, aja, aje, aji, ajo, ala, ale and 427 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 410 more...
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Do-it-yourself Christmas Carol List
Tired of singing the same carols year after year? Wanna mix it up a little? Now you can, with the Do-it-yourself Christmas Carol List (from the creator of the Doo-it-yourself Doowop List). Just mix...
let it, reindeer, silent, child, Christmas, got run over by a, mercy mild, winter, joyful, holly, newborn, king and 59 more...
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IxLovexApples's list
this is a list of the words I use the most. if you look at all of them you can kind of tell my personality.
bitch, hot, kool, wow, wtf, omfg, slut, ass, gay, ugh, bleh, spaz and 12 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
him and i
peach, left, alone, abandon, horid, gay, bloody, beautiful, outside, inside, confused, unconditional and 111 more...
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3LW
3 letter words, not the girl band.
boggle and speed scrabble would not be half as fun without them.aah, boa, dot, fun, ick, log, oca, pyx, sos, was, aal, bob and 342 more...
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Favorites
ostensibly, surreptitiously, seriously, apparently, vociferous, guitar, asphalt, glee, glitter, fascinating, asynchronous, cunt and 128 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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Samme's Words
soliloquy, meander, creativity, magic, discovery, happiness, empowerment, abundance, [magnificent], iridescent, artistic, magical and 694 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gay.
bilby I'll give you the best help I can:
Before you up the mountain go,
Up to the dreary mountain-top,
I'll tell you all I know.
'Tis now some two and twenty years,
Since she (her name is Martha Ray)
Gave with a maiden's true good will
Her company to Stephen Hill;
And she was blithe and gay,
And she was happy, happy still
Whene'er she thought of Stephen Hill.
- William Wordsworth, 'The Thorn', 1798. Oct 9, 2008
Prolagus As an answer to plethora's comment, on another word (I just don't want it to become the "most active thread"):
I hate it too, and yes, plethora, it's your generation! :-) When I attended high school (I'm 28) it wasn't used that way, at least in Italy. Aug 24, 2008
johnmperry "bonnie and blythe
and good and gay"
- check bonnie Jun 18, 2008
johnmperry In the tales of Archy & Mehitabel (Don Marquis, 1916 onwards) the watchword of Mehitabel the cat was "toujours gay archy, toujours gay." Archy was a cockroach who couldn't hack the shift key on the typewriter, so always wrote in lower case. Jun 18, 2008
bilby An industrial town near Orenburg, Russia. Dec 31, 2007
npydyuan Yeah--that's probably the most sane policy. Sep 20, 2007
reesetee For what it's worth, I try not to think too much about other people's reactions anymore. :-) Sep 19, 2007
npydyuan re: sprite—Wow! It is heartening to see how non-flamey that potentially volatile discussion remained.
Inspired by one of reesetee's comments there, I feel like volunteering this bit of tangential autobiographica: I am bisexual, and trying to figure out when semi-self-referential ironic gay comments are going to be well received, has often proved a challenging social puzzle. Sep 19, 2007
uselessness Eeeeeek! Sep 19, 2007
reesetee Not a problem, npydyuan. But whatever else you do here, avoid mentioning the word sprite! ;-) Sep 19, 2007
npydyuan Well, that's a relief. I was referring to the sense of fag identified by SonofGroucho. My logophilia, I'm afraid, is often matched with juvenilia! Sep 19, 2007
reesetee Just a tad. But not to worry--I'm over it. :-) Sep 19, 2007
npydyuan Hmmm... no emoticon... have I genuinely offended? Sep 19, 2007
reesetee Er...npydyuan? Easy there. Sep 19, 2007
npydyuan sociophobic flail at humor contritely redacted by misshapen author Sep 19, 2007
jennarenn Alas, I am full of woe. Sep 19, 2007
trivet I work hard for a living... Sep 18, 2007
uselessness True enough. :-) Sep 18, 2007
reesetee But no less bonnie, blythe, and good, I imagine. Sep 18, 2007
uselessness Interesting, I had no idea what day of the week I was born on, but thanks to the internet, I could look it up! Turns out: Sunday. However I am rather straight. ;-) Sep 18, 2007
reesetee Alas, I'm Tuesday's child. Apparently I am full of grace. ;-) Sep 18, 2007
kewpid But the child that is born
on the Sabbath day is…
bonnie and blythe
and good and gay. Sep 18, 2007