queer

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   beyond or deviating from the usual or expected

   I thought that my boss was strange, but then I met my friend's queer boss and I realized that I had it good.

2. 2
   adj

   homosexual or arousing homosexual desires

   I wonder how diverse the queer community is in the city?

3. 3
   noun

   a homosexual man

   Do people often discriminate against people who the believe are queer?

4. 4
   verb

   to put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position

   Throughout the game of chess my opponent kept queering me.

5. 5
   verb

   to hinder or prevent the efforts, plans, or desires of

   Should the government queer the advocate's attempts once more a rebellion will probably break out.

6. 6
   verb

   to complicate or reframe the analytical categories of, through an analysis of gender, sexuality, and their related power dynamics

   Their newly published book queers the discourse on prisons.

7. 7
   adj

   Homosexual.

   “Such a Momma’s boy.” The old men had started up again—or perhaps they had never stopped. “No matter who he schtupped. Even Marilyn. I wouldn’t be surprised he was queer.” / “Strange, yes. Weird, yes. Queer, I don’t think.”

8. 8
   adj

   Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc.

   the queer community

Etymology

Attested since about 1510, at first in Scots. Usually taken to be from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) or the related 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, and see more at thwart. The OED argues against this due to the semantic differences and the date at which the word appears in Scots. Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 19th century, see usage notes for more.