queer

Etymology

Attested since about 1510, from Scots, perhaps from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) (also compare with German quer (“diagonal”)), from Old Saxon thwerh, from Proto-West Germanic *þwerh, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to turn, twist, wind”). Compare Latin torqueō. Related to thwart. Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s, see usage notes for more.

adj

1. (dated outside Ireland, Scotland and Northern England) Weird, odd, or different; whimsical.
   “I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” 1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
   One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes–as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white–the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens. 1877, Ulysses S. Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876-September 30, 1878, page 252
   It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled "His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America." The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost "His Excellency" less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water! 1885, David Dixon Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, page 274
   Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   1927, J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds” in Possible Worlds and Other Papers, London: Chatto & Windus, Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
   A queer look came over John Arable's face. He seemed almost ready to cry himself. 1952, E. B. White, Charlotte's Web, page 3
   Though it may seem very queer, we've got no jobs to give you here, so we are sending you to Vietnam. 1965, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”, Tom Paxton (lyrics), Tom Paxton (music)
2. (Britain, informal, dated) Slightly unwell (mainly in "to feel queer").
   Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. … When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   "Well, I'm—I'm jiggered," said Peter, and his voice also sounded queer. 1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
3. (Britain, slang) Drunk.
4. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Homosexual.
5. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Non-heterosexual or non-cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
6. (broadly) Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc.
   the queer community
   If gender is no longer to be understood as consolidated through normative sexuality, then is there a crisis of gender that is specific to queer contexts? 1999, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Routledge, published 2002, preface to 1999 edition
   Historically, this has meant that queer sexuality—defined here not literally or only as same-gender desire but as "the sex of others," meaning any sexuality outside the bounds of the reproductive, white, and genitally oriented—is often positioned against and even as toxic to "nature". 2022, Marisol Cortez, “Ambivalent Anality: Revisiting the Queer Ecology of the "Jackass Moment"”, in Media+Environment

noun

1. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
   Now that the first flush of this catastrophe and grief is passed, I write to tell you that it is a judgement on the whole lot of you. Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like [the Earl of] Rosebery & certainly Christian hypocrite [William Ewart] Gladstone … 1 November 1894, John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, “[Letter from Queensbury to Alfred Montgomery, 1 Nov 1894, in the aftermath of the trial of Oscar Wilde]”, in Michael S. Foldy, editor, The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, published 1997, page 22
   … fourteen young men were invited … with the premise that they would have the opportunity of meeting some of the prominent 'queers,' … and the further attraction that some 'chickens' as the new recruits in the vice are called, would be available. 1914 November, Eugene Fisher, “Transmittal to the Sacramento Bee [a.k.a Shakespeare Transmittal]”, in Sharon R. Ullman, editor, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, published 1998, page 64
   It is the queers themselves whose answers to "What to do about it [homosexuality]" are most important. They, rather than the normals, cops, parents, or doctors are the persons most vitally concerned. 1940 January-June, Allen Bernstein, “What to do about it: Queers”, in Millions of Queers (Our Homo America), [Unpublished MS of the United States National Library of Medicine], →OCLC, page 132
   Any blow against the queer is really a blow struck against a part of our­selves which we cannot accept or understand. I think in every case it would be correct to say that someone with a strong hostility toward homosexuals has a latent homosexual drive equal to the hostility. 1959 May, David McReynolds, “McReynolds Reply to [Seymour] Krim”, in Mattachine Review, volume V, number 5, Los Angeles: Mattachine Society, →ISSN, page 11, column 2
   If you asked the man in the modern street for his opinion of homosexuality, he would probably reply, 'I've nothing against queers myself but I wouldn't like one of them to marry my father.' 1968, Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, London: Cape, →OCLC, page 207
   Queers are under siege. Queers are being attacked on all front and I'm afraid it's ok with us. In 1969, Queers were attacked. It wasn't ok. Queers fought back, took the streets. SHOUTED. 1990 June, Queers Read This, Published Anonymously by Queers [Distributed at New York Pride, 1990], →OCLC, page 2, column 3
   He also voiced his dislike for gays, stating: 'I don't believe in queers. I don't like queers. I don't hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong and an abomination against God.' 5 February 2013, “Football coach suspended for Michelle Obama insult”, in USA Today, →ISSN
2. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any non-heterosexual sexuality or sexual identity.
3. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any genderqueer identity.
   Gentrification often starts with the artists, revolutionaries, freaks, transfolks, and queers (what I would call my people) moving into poor neighborhoods inhabited by people of color. 2014, Inga Muscio, Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil
4. (definite, with "the", informal, archaic) Counterfeit money.
   You're shoving the queer. 1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, Carroll & Graf, published 1997, page 133

verb

1. (transitive, dated) To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.
   I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it. 1955, Rex Stout, "When a Man Murders...", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, page 78
2. (UK, dialect, dated) To puzzle.
   "But lor-a-mussy, Jacob, how could a woman get away from here with all her boxes in the middle of the night?" "That's what queered me," and Spink slowly shook his head, "and queered a good many; for of course it got newsed about […]" 1887, G. W. Appelton, chapter II, in A Terrible Legacy: A Tale of the South Downs, London: Ward and Downey, page 12
   "Where do you come from?" Stanley queered. 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud; A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter V, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt
3. (slang, dated) To ridicule; to banter; to rally.
4. (slang, dated) To spoil the effect or success of, as by ridicule; to throw a wet blanket on; to spoil.
   "Food is what queered the party. We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two o'clock. Alec didn't give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little bastard snitched." 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Book Two, Chapter IV, pages 270-271
   Well, then I got buried—shell dropped, and the dug-out caved in—and that queered me. They sent me home. 1926, D. H. Lawrence, “Glad Ghosts”, in The Complete Short Stories, volume 3, Penguin, published 1977, page 678
5. (social sciences) To reevaluate or reinterpret (a work) with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.
   If I go, for instance, to the history of the church in Latin America, and decide to queer the history of the Jesuitic Missions, I may find that, in many ways, the missions were more sexual than Christian. 2003, Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God, page 9
   Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume. 2006, Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern, page 80
   We might say that there has been a ‘queering’ of urban studies insofar as the metropolitan lives, subcultures and social movements of gays and lesbians are now seen as valid objects of study. 2013, Mark Davidson, Deborah Martin, chapter 8, in Urban Politics: Critical Approaches, SAGE
6. (slang, LGBT, neologism) To make a work more appealing or attractive to LGBT people, such as by not having strict genders for playable characters.

adv

1. Queerly.
2. (Ireland) Very, extremely.
   Twas a queer bachram in the pub that night!
   Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes!” 1939, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
   Page 6: Tony: Yeah, he's a queer smily fecker, ain't he? Page 14: Tony: I'll tell yeh one thing Conway he's trainin' queer hard for it! 1988, Billy Roche, A Handful of Stars, act I, pages 6, 14