Where did the word gay come from
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A thing not small of its kind may be called pretty if it is of little dignity or consequence: as a pretty dress or shade of color; but pretty is not used of men or their belongings, except in contempt. John J. McCook, "Tramps," in "The Public Treatment of Pauperism," 1893], but some accounts report certain older tramps would dominate a gay cat and employ him as a sort of slave.
In Middle English it meant "excellent person, noble lady, gallant knight," also "something gay or bright; an ornament or badge" (c. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889.
See, Kid, cats sneak about and scratch immediately after chumming with you and then get gay (fresh). Those were just accepted definitions, along with the other meanings of the word.
Around the 1920s and 1930s, however, the word started to have a new meaning. It is coming into use in Germany and among the English-speaking upper classes of many cosmopolitan areas in other countries.
The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back at least to the 1630s, if not to Chaucer:
But in oure bed he was so fressh and gay
Whan that he wolde han my bele chose. CST.
Homosexual
The word Homosexual (meaning sexually or romantically attached to members of the same sex) is a combination of Greek and Latin roots; the Greek element, ὁμός (homos) means "the same" and is not connected with the Latin "homo" meaning "man".
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. By the mid 17th century, according to an Oxford dictionary definition at the time, the meaning of the word had changed to mean “addicted to pleasures and dissipations. 1400).
also from 1971
Middle English pratie "cunning, crafty, clever" (c.
Gay is not a dirty word. A pretty penny "lot of money" is recorded from 1703.
"cheerfulness, mirth," 1630s, from French gaieté (Old French gaiete, 12c.), from gai "gay" (see gay). Pretty please as an emphatic plea is attested from 1902.
The term was invented by the Hungarian writer Károly Mária Kertbeny, in a letter to the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.[1] The terms homosexual and heterosexual came into use among scientists after Richard von Krafft-Ebing used then in his book Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), but were probably unknown to the general public until after the First World War.[2]
Before the word "homosexual" came into use, the most common terms included "invert".
Also used of bees (c. If you want to say something is stupid, lame, dumb or any other variation of those terms, use those terms.
Unheard Voices released a series of statements made by students around the United States on the phrase “that’s gay.” Chris R. of Ohio said, “When I hear ‘that’s so gay,’ I think...that’s so ignorant!”
Copyright The Gayly.
It still keeps its definition as meaning something to the effect of “festive”.