- adj.
Young men or boy wearing the costume of a women in a play. [send in the Gay.]
Source: [16th century England theatrical]
- adj.
Happy excitement, merry. 1800 It was used as a synonym for happy by Chaucer in the 14th century.
- 012
To be inadequate or displeasing; TO SUCK. something bad or unacceptable. ["that's so gay" or "that's gay."] ("That movie was fucking gay.")
Note: In the late 1990s the teen culture started using the word gay to represent something not acceptable to their standards. From the late 1960's gay was associated with homosexuality, to most of society homosexuality was unacceptable and considered bad, so the word gay has transformed itself into something bad or unacceptable.
Source: [USA 1990's]
Gay boy a trap younger homosexual lover.
Source: [1950's (geycat), 1930's & 40's hobo slang]
A person leading a loose and immoral life.
Source: [1637]
Prostitute , it was sometimes used to refer to female hookers. A "gay house" was a brothel.
Source: [1825]
To be convalescent, or in good health.
Source: [late 19th century]
Homosexual man.6.
Source: [16th century]
“Gay" was first used to in USA Literature and movie's, refer to a male homosexual in the 1933 play "Young and Evil." Cary Grant used it in the 1938 movie "Bringing up Baby" to refer to a transvestite. Cary Grant exclaims, "I've Just gone gay all of a sudden" to explain why he is wearing a fur-trimmed nightgown.
Source: [1933, 1938, Gershn Legman and G.V. Henry mentioned the term gay in their book Sexual Variations (1941)]
New Yorkers were using "gay" by World War II as a alternative to "Queer," "pansy," and "fairy." The term gay did not become widely familar to the general public, until the Stonewall riot of June 28, 1969 by 1974 the word "gay" meant both "gay and lesbian" (e.g. the lesbians who were active in the Gay Liberation Front preferred calling themselves Gay rather than Lesbian). But the general public used gay, in ways that ignored or excluded women, so gay women favored the word "lesbian. A 1995 survey in the Advocate, 34 percent preferred to called "gay women."
Lively or bright.